The Empire Strikes Back!
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It was different this time around, the New England Patriots had the biggest, little man on the field and the Jets had no answer for it. Wes Welker had a career day, catching 15 passes for 192 yards as the Patriots rolled over the New York Jets 31-14 yesterday in Foxboro.
Back in Week 2, the Jets talked and talked and backed it up on the field, hitting Tom Brady on virtually every pass by dialing up a myriad of blitzes. This time around, every time they blitzed, Brady looked to Welker and the Jets defenders had no magic formula for stopping him.
Last time, after a bad first half, Mark Sanchez, had a stellar second half leading the Jets to a big second half win, where afterwards the Jets players talked of it being a Super Bowl victory. This time around it was the Patriots who harassed Sanchez, hounding him into making horrible mistakes, intercepting 4 of his passes, one returned by Leigh Bodden for a touchdown and fumble on a strip sack by Tully Banta-Cain. On this day, Sanchez again resembled the rookie QB that he is, making bad throws and bad decisions and trying to do too much.
The Patriots defense rebounded nicely from the 4<sup>th</sup> quarter meltdown against the Colts last week to dominate the Jets. The Jets only good drive was just after the half where they went 80 yards for a touchdown, they were flat out dominated on both sides of the ball. In fact until a garbage time drive where Thomas Jones gained 40 yards and Sanchez completed a 33 yard pass to Jerricho Cotchery, he had less than 100 yards net passing and Jones was held in check all day when it mattered.
The Patriots offense outgained the Jets 414 to 226 on the day and moved the ball all day seemingly at will against the unit that dominated them in the Meadowlands. With all of the talk surrounding the Randy Moss and Darelle Revis matchup, the Jets seemed intent on once again taking Moss away. And they did, the Jets did a nice job of limiting Moss to just 5 catches for 34 yards, with a 5 yard touchdown from Brady. But they over-compensated for Moss, and underneath the passes to Welker killed them. Nowhere was it more evident than a play in the second quarter when Moss ran a crossing pattern and three Jets defenders ran towards him. Welker ran up the seam untouched and Brady hit him for a 43 yard gain.
"He mail-boxed his hand, raised his arm, and it was hard to see because he's 5-7," Brady said joking. "That was a big play." During the week 2 game Welker was out with a knee injury, and it was obvious that he was missing. Yesterday he was all over the field. Even with the two missing games due to his knee injury, Welker has 79 catches, tops in the NFL. He also leads the NFL in YAC (yards after catch) because of his fearlessness about going into the tough places across the middle of the field. He took some fearsome hits but like the Energizer Bunny kept jumping right back up.
"He's one of the toughest guys I've ever played with," Patriots quarterback Tom Brady said. After the game even the normally bombastic Jets were forced to tip their hats to him. Kerry Rhodes when told of Welker’s numbers for the day responded, "Wow," he said. "That is pretty bad, but he is a good player. He does a good job of finding the open spot and Brady puts it right to him."
Laurence Maroney did a good job against a tough Jets run defense grinding out 77 tough yards on 22 carries and two rushing touchdowns on the ground. While not gaudy numbers, the fact that they were able to out-gain the Jets on the ground was a main reason the passing game was able to shred the Jets secondary time and again. With Moss their main target of stopping, Welker and Kevin Faulk were the recipients of the underneath game. Faulk had 4 catches for 53 yards. Tom Brady was 28-41 for 310 yards and a touchdown for the day.
Sanchez ended up with numbers of 8-21 for 136 yards with a touchdown and four interceptions. Leigh Bodden had three of the picks, one of which he returned for a touchdown to put the Patriots up 7-0. Bodden had as many picks (3) as catches the two Jets leading receivers had, (Cotchery and Keller). Thomas Jones ended up with 103 yards on 21 carries but 40 of those came in the final drive at garbage time. When it mattered, he was a non-factor as was the entire Jets offense. On this day, they were the ones, battered and bruised and sent home packing. No wailing air raid sirens, no silly Fireman Ed leading the crowd in chants was going to change this one.
The Patriots now find themselves in a good position at 7-3, two games up on Miami and three up on the Jets in the AFC East. With a Monday Night Football matchup with undefeated New Orleans and a game in Miami up on the slate, they are far from assured anything. But this season, once again they are the front runners and everyone else has to chase them. With the loss by the Cincinnati Bengals yesterday, the Patriots, Bengals and San Diego Chargers are all tied for the all important second slot in the AFC, which would denote a bye in the first round of the playoffs, but that is a long ways off, with a lot of football to be played. This was however,a butt-whipping of the first degree and had to be a satisfying win for Bill Belichick after the debacle of a fourth quarter in Indianapolis last weekend.
For Rex Ryan, while he didn’t come here for or nor did he kiss Belichick’s rings as he pointed out earlier this year, he has to be wondering where the ship has gone wrong. After a 3-0 start, the NFL media pool was abuzz of a Jets Super Bowl appearance. The Jets players embraced the talk and now after a 1-6 collapse, all of that talk seems foolish. Super Bowls aren’t won in Week 2, and at 4-6, a chance at the division crown seems very remote. They are now in third place and would have to vault over the resilient Dolphins, who shook off an 0-3 start to get back even at 5-5, the Jets would also have to run the table at 6-0 to have any chance of a playoff berth.
This week we’ll carry any breaking news coming out of Foxboro as well as our Steve & Steve column for a Patriots – Saints Key Matchups preview. Kudos go out to our colleague Steve Nelson who had this one perfectly called at 31-14 yesterday. Until then, It is what it is…..
