Well, I think its about time I suck it up and write this one. Hopefully I can make it through without breaking down and crying. The Jets won just about every aspect of the gam and the Pats seemingly worked as hard as they could to let this one go.
The only chance that the Jets had to win this game was to play just about a flawless game and hope for mistakes on the Patriots end. To anyone that has watched this team all season the game was a forgone conclusion because Tom Terrific hadn’t thrown an interception since the last ice age and the young defense was finally starting to mature. This was not the team that we had been watching all season on the field. The Jets did exactly what they had to do to win this one.
The Jets played as close to a mistake free game as they could have. They won the turnover battle and the momentum shifted to the Jets early in the game. Even though the Jets didn’t score after the pick, it gave them hope that they could win and that, along with weak play from the Pats would be all it would take.
Quarterback Battle
As everyone expected one QB stayed fairly calm, cool, and collected and helped his team with the game, but who would have thought that QB would turn out to be Mark Sanchez. Sanchez did not go out and win the game for New York but he did exactly what a young quarterback on an otherwise solid team should do. He came out and played mistake free football that gave his team a chance to win.
Brady was far from the Brady we had seen all season. The pick on the first drive was unfortunate, but the biggest problem with Tom Terrific seemed to be in his own head. At points throughout the game he seemed distant, complacent and just all around dull. You cannot expect anyone to have a great game every game, but certainly it would have been nice to see some of the fire that Brady has displayed all season. He seemed to be disconnected and that lack of drive seemed to bring down the whole offense.
Coaching
Gotta hand it to the foot loving blowhard on this one. Ryan drew up an excellent game plan and managed to confuse Brady in every state of the game. He gave the Pats a lot of different looks and the Pats could not adjust quickly enough. Ryan seemed to realize that New England did not have a deep threat so he could clog up the lanes in the middle of the field and leave Revis and Cromartie to do their thing on the outside.
There were a couple questionable calls coming from under the hood this game as well. It is easy to look back at it and say that benching Welker on the first series may not have been the best idea but how much did it really effect the game? Without his safety blanket on the field Tom threw the interception that really changed the pace of the game just when the Pats were marching down the field to set the pace of the game. Vince Wilfork has even come out saying that if it had been him making the call he would not have benched Welker for putting his foot in his mouth. Would Tom have thrown the interception with Wes on the field? Who knows, but it couldn’t have hurt.
Patrick Chung came out taking full responsibility for the botched fake punt that let the Jets score before half but you have to think some of the blame should still fall on Belichick. Chung may have made the call on his own, but he is a second year player. Should he really be in the position to make that call in a game this important? There is only so much that Bill can control the players once they are out there, but from a coach as smart as he is wouldn’t he make sure the players are smarter situationally?
The biggest bright spot to come out of this game was the play of the young Patriots D. They played well and they held their own only to be let down by the offense. Usually I get pissed off when people say there is always next year but in this case the Pats could easily be better. The Jets will only continue to improve this year, but I would still be hesitant to bet against Bill and Brady.
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