I’ve never been a big fan of putting Band-Aids on losses. In fact, I usually go in the opposite direction. There’s no such thing as a “good” loss.If the game’s close enough to go either way, I want to win it. I don’t want to be waking up at night for the next week wondering whether one or two plays would have made the difference.So while everyone was singing rhapsodies about how “close” the Patriots came Sunday in a hostile environment in Indianapolis, I’m thinking about Jabar Gaffney and screaming to myself, “Catch the (expletive deleted) ball!”(Remind me to recount a story of the Patriots-Titans playoff game in 2004 when I’m done with this.)Either that, or I’m saying that the next time I see Dave Thomas, I want to go up to him, get right in his face, and yell, “What’s the matter with you? You got rocks in your head?”If either of those two plays (Gaffney’s dropped pass or Thomas’ stupid personal-foul penalty) in last Sunday’s game go differently, the Patriots likely win that game, and we’re all talking about one of the great gut-checks of our time ? the accomplishment of going into Indy and beating Peyton Manning with a quarterback who is – for all intents and purposes – still a rookie.We’re also going into Sunday’s game against the upstart Buffalo Bills with the confidence of knowing we just came back from stealing a game in Indianapolis.However, I will concede that we learned a few things about both Matt Cassel and Stephen Gostkowski in last Sunday’s game – and both were good things. First, Cassel, as the quarterback for the rest of the season, is growing by leaps and bounds.I had the privilege (??) of sitting through both preseason games in Foxborough, and let me tell you something. Cassel was horrendous. In fact, I remember thinking that all this talk about Brady being hurt was a façade, because if he was really injured, the Patriots would have found someone who could actually complete a pass and signed him up as the backup.When Brady went down in Week 1, and it was obvious that the injury was serious and season-ending, I was hoping the Patriots would do a Doug Mirabelli, kidnap Daunte Culpepper, and get him to Foxborough via police escort, in uniform, by halftime.We built up some false hopes in that Kansas City game, and in the following week, when the defense put the clamps on the Jets. But then the Pats went 1-2, and looked pitiful in both losses, and – again – it was, “Isn’t there anyone out there who can throw the ball and avoid getting sacked?”However, Cassel’s done nothing but improve since then. And he may have played his best game in Indy. I don’t know what this means for Sunday’s game, because without Brady, and with only one varsity running back (Kevin Faulk), every game is in play.But it’s nice to know Cassel has it in him.As for Gostkowski, he came here on the heels of Adam Vinatieri’s departure. And while he wasn’t exactly terrible in his first two seasons, you could tell Bill Belichick wasn’t ready to give him the keys to the family car either. That couldn’t have been more obvious than it was last February in the Super Bowl, when Belichick chose to run a fourth-and-13 play instead of allowing Gostkowski to kick a field goal that was well within his range.This season, however, it would appear that Belichick isn’t as stingy with those keys (witness his sprinting down the sideline to negate a first-down quarterback sneak by Cassel to allow Gostkowski to kick a field goal).Gostkowski (can someone please find him a short nickname, like Gosty, or something?) has also proven to be much better on kickoffs than Vinatieri ever was. So, this is obviously his breakout season.Something tells me that if the Patriots are going to go anywhere from here on out, they’ll need a confident “Gosty” on their side.Oh. As for the story ? I had knee surgery the Thursday prior to that 2004 Pats-Titans game that turned out to be our equivalent of the “Ice Bowl.” At one point, on a big third-down play, Brady found a wide-open Daniel Gr