One of our other SB Nation bloggers brought this up, and it seemed like a pretty good idea. Each week we will get some prospective on our upcoming opponent from the team they just played. This week's installment comes from MaPatsFan over at Pats Pulpit. Here is what he had to say about the Jets:
As a division rival, the trash talking before a game is always at a pretty high level, but head coach Rex Ryan had brought things to new heights. Unfortunately, they were able to walk the walk and it was a 9-16 loss for my Patriots. You can checkout the game stats for all the details, but in my mind, a few factoids really standout:- Patriots were 0/3 in the red zone
- Poor special teams play. Jets RB Leon Washington had 4 kick return carries for 127 yards and a longest of 43
- Brady was under 50%. 23/47 and 216 yards means your inefficient (bad passes and/or dropped balls)
- Wes Welker was out which meant almost no screen passes, something that helps mitigate strong pass rushing and blitzing teams
- Jets' CB Darrelle Revis did a good job of containing Randy MossOverall, I think Rex Ryan did a good job playing to his strengths and containing his weaknesses. That is, he had his strong defense pass rush and blitz a lot while not putting rookie quarterback Mark Sanchez in any difficult situations. In hindsight, I think the Pats should've blitzed and rushed Sanchez much more and threw up more screens to RB Kevin Faulk, our other screen option when Welker's not available. That and stronger special teams play might've clinched the win for us.