Knee Jerk Reactions to Week 7: Pats vs Jets
Things to consider while offering a friendly reminder that 4 receptions and 1 touchdown on the season does NOT entitle one to mess with The Hair:
*I’m officially retiring from the business of trying to figure out why these Pats-Jets games never go the way they should. Why the Jets don’t just play like the Jets and the Patriots play like the Patriots and they roll to a nice, comfortable, never-in-doubt, cover-the-spread win. Why they’re always either a huge blowout (45-3, The Buttfumble), a shocking win by the Jets (the playoff debacle) or a death struggle fought in an alley with trash can lids and broken bottles like yesterday.
*Maybe the two teams are so familiar with each other there’s no out-scheming each other anymore. Maybe the Jets are just so sick of being the Theon Greyjoy of the AFC East they get up for New England like they don’t for anyone else. Or maybe we chalk this one up to it being just another white hot Thursday Night Football mess and forget it ever happened. All I know is I waited a good ten minutes after it was over to make sure the refs didn’t flag Chris Jones for getting pushed in the back from the second level.
*Also, as I write this it’s 7:30 AM. Right now the league still has not yet thrown a flag to negate Danny Amendola’s catch either. But stay tuned for more updates.
*But if I had to pick one reason why the game wasn’t well in hand by 10:30 so we could all casually flip over to an all new “Chopped” without a care in the world, it’s personnel. I thought for the most part the Jets O-line dominated the Patriots front-7 and that’s what made the game such a close-quarters Jason Bourne fight.
*For the most part the Patriots tried to 2-gap out of the 3-4 and were completely outmatched. Vince Wilfork can do it like he was genetically bred for it, but even he took years to learn it. And beyond him they don’t have anyone with the size/skill combination to pull it off. Casey Walker made a few plays when he’s free to penetrate. But have him trying to control the gap on both sides of a blocker and he gets overwhelmed. Walker is listed at 340lbs, but when asked to hold his ground, Nick Mangold slid him back and forth like the ladder on a library bookshelf. And even when the D-line did clog up the holes, absent a Jerod Mayo to come in and finish the ballcarrier off, they just got gashed all night. Granted I just watched the game once through and I’m writing this on 4 hours of sleep. But if I’m the mechanic trying to figure out what was wrong with this game I’d be pointing to the defensive front and saying “Well, there’s yer problem…”
*But I won’t give Thursday Night Football an Inspection Sticker either. They should open the show with “Are you ready for some FOOTBALL?!?” then have every player, coach, official, announcer and blogger involved say “NO!!!” then go home until Sunday.
*I think for the most part we’re all guilty of making more out of pro sports rivalries than is really there. It’s fair to say the guys we follow almost never hate each other their way fanbases do. The way we’d like them to. Thank God for Jets-Patriots then because you know with the owners and coaches at least, the hatred is genuine and the respect is grudging at best. The midfield handshake between Belichick and Ryan was so fast it created a Higgs boson God Particle.
*On a related note, Skinny Rex is like Skinny Jonah Hill. When you make us love you as a fat man, you owe it to us to stay a fat man. Let’s go. Eat up. Give us our Fat Rex back again.
*For all the issues the front-7 had, I’d be derelict in my blogging duties if I didn’t single out Dont’a Hightower for praise. He was playing hurt, make all the calls, was the one moving bodies around on pre-snap reads and was all over the place in the run game. And he was effective in his blitzes, whether it was his 1st down run stuff on the second drive or his coverage sack on the third. And was it not for him drawing a hold (a very wise one because he would’ve snapped Geno Smith like a pretzel rod otherwise) that negated that first NY touchdown, the Patriots probably lose the game.
*Did you catch the part at halftime when Phil Simms said he agrees with Deion Sanders that the Jets need to get a receiver open for a touchdown? Well for years I’ve been trying to categorize Simms particular brand of annoyingness. His “I have to be talking all the time no matter how useless and unnecessary what I’m saying is” obnoxiousness. And I think I’ve finally had a breakthrough. Simms is a member of that Irritating Guy phylum I’ll call “Guy Who Talks to You From the Next Stall While You Poop.”
*Maybe the game ball should go to the O-line. Not that they dominated. But going into the game with a line of Solder-Devey-Wendell-Kline-Vollmer didn’t have me brimming with Cialis ad-level confidence. And they were going up against the Wilkersons and Richardsons in a scheme that has been notorious over the years at baffling the Pats protection packages to send guys in free almost at will. But they held. Rex used practically every stunt, twist, tackle-end cross (“TEX”) and fire zone in his tool box, and the Pats had virtually no assignment breakdowns I can remember. Even the one sack they gave up was a roll out where Brady gave himself up with nobody open. They were solid throughout. Though I’m still holding out hope we’ll get to see the same starting five out there two weeks in a row. You may say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one…
*So as the NBAification of football continues, is it safe to say Brandon Browner is our Dennis Rodman? The guy who’ll commit all the fouls in the regular season knowing that they’ll quit calling it that way when it really counts? It’s not the way we’ve done things around here, but OK. The last two Super Bowl champs led the league in penalties, so who am I to argue with a successful formula?
*One GOOD penalty in this one was Jordan Devey for retaliating after TJ Barnes shoved Brady in the back. That was well worth the 15 yards and the probably 4 points it costs the team. But of course the refs are going to protect TJ Barnes like the always do. Pretty boy. I look forward to Ray Lewis saying how embarrassing it is to the game that the have special rules just for TJ Barnes because he’s good enough to make his own plays.
*Julian Edelman has done an amazing job replacing Wes Welker, no question. And last night he even proved he can replace Welker’s drops. (Sorry. No disrespect to Minitron. That was a dig at Welker only. I’m still working through a lot of unresolved issues regarding him. I haven’t moved on, obviously. And the resentment is starting to hurt the ones I love. Maybe I should try aroma therapy or a yoga instead of all this anger before it destroys me…)
*I for the life of me can’t figure out the Patriots genius for making terrible quarterbacks look like 1994 Steve Young. I just can’t. Different personnel. A slew of first round draft picks out there. The best corner of his generation. Same results. Once again they’re up for the Bad QB Club’s Defense of the Year Award. One thing I do know is Geno Smith is much better in the Eastern Time Zone. And there’s no reason to miss team meetings since the Showcase Live at Patriots Place has a much better schedule of showtimes with all those screens.
*This Week’s Applicable Movie Quote, Amendola/Brady’s hair edition: “Coffee is for closers only.” – Glengarry Glen Ross
*I continue to be impressed with Pat Chung. Sure he gets beaten on crossing routes and so on, as does everyone in the league. But his run support has been phenomenal. They blitzed him effectively, twice in a row on that final scoring drive, one he was picked up by Chris “CJ0.5K” Johnson, the other forced a throwaway. And while he didn’t blanket Jace Amaro on the failed conversion try, he was good enough. And the best play he made was on that final punt, when he didn’t call for the fake. He’s learned a lot in four years.
*The first move I’d make when the team comes back on Tuesday is take Brandon LaFell off the Onsides Kick coverage team. You can’t have a guy on your Hands Team who lets the ball go off his shins like he’s AJ Pierzynski.
*Thank the Schedule Gods this was the Jets. We’re onto having the weekend off.
@JerryThornton1