jets

Patriots vs. Jets Film Review: Defense Edition

November 30, 2016 by Mike Dussault

The Patriots defense made three big plays against the Jets and it was enough to set the stage for another Tom Brady comeback and then close it out. Overall the Patriots leaned heavily on their zone coverage in this one, especially in the second half, with a focus on putting six defenders in the Jets primary target areas.

It worked because of the brilliant play against the run that made the Jets one-dimensional and heavily reliant on check downs. They had their breakdowns but it worked well enough to win and sparked the team out of their takeaway funk.

Here’s what stood out on the film review of the defense…

— Right off the bat it was apparent that Brown and Branch came to play. Both had maybe their best games in this one, especially against the run, where they were unmovable. Brown has really good low center of gravity and he’s a problem for any two blockers to move off the spot. Meanwhile, when left one-on-one Branch manhandles fools.

— Closely monitoring zone vs. man for this review, and on the first drive they played zone just once, one the first third down which was converted. On the second third down they went to man and good coverage, including a pretty good interior rush by Flowers that drew a hold, didn’t leave Fitz much to work with.

— Elandon Roberts has had his playing time reduced recently, but showed more great anticipation on the first play of the second drive, making the tackle for loss. He’d been quiet the last couple games but it was good to see that kind of play out of him.

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Pats Posits: Toughness and Resiliency

November 28, 2016 by Mike Dussault

The Patriots survived the Jets like they often do, coming up with three big defensive plays and a game-winning touchdown drive in a 22-17 victory that moved Tom Brady into a first place tie with Peyton Manning with 200 all-time wins.

The defense that hadn’t forced a turnover in three games came through with a forced fumble from Malcolm Butler, a blocked field goal attempt by Alan Branch and a game-clinching strip sack by Chris Long.

The offense turned in a gritty performance, with Brady still hobbling with a knee injury and losing Rob Gronkowski in the first half to a back injury. The final come-from-behind touchdown drive took eight plays and 83 yards and including a fourth-down conversion that went to James White.

Vintage Brady, with passes to Edelman (24 yards), Lewis (16 yards) and Hogan (25 yards). It once again illustrates why the Patriots are always so hard to beat — they never quit and are always at their best with the game on the line.

The Jets couldn’t make the last play to seal the game and the Patriots did.

The Pats are now 9-2 and remain tied for the top seed in the conference with a two-game lead in the division.

More on the win, with only Rams standing between Brady and becoming the winningest QB of all time in then Posits…

Best/Worst in Weekly Patriots Links – 11/26

November 26, 2016 by Nikolas Davos

tom brady gif

After a stint at WEEI as a columnist/co-host (with Dale and Holley), one of my very favorite sports writers Jerry Thornton has re-signed to Barstool, with a presumably Von Miller-esque deal. He gets us going this week with a rant within his “knee-jerk reaction” piece that makes me want to blast “Crazy Train” and run into brick walls:

Yet (Brady’s) ability to leave the pocket and throw on the run is the best of his career. But you Deflategate Truthers keep telling yourself it was always about air pressure. If there was a drop off in Brady’s performance, we’d never be hearing the end of it from you anti-science Flat Earth shitbags. But now that he’s playing some of his best football ever with allegedly untampered footballs, the silence is deafening.

Is it Sunday yet?! Absolutely love it and really couldn’t be more true. Proof is in the pudding with another ho-hum AFC player of the week award to add to the TB resume. If you don’t read Jerry’s “knee-jerk reaction” series after every game, start now. You’re genuinely missing out.

Okay, enough with the fun and games. Let’s refocus our efforts on continuing to fix the defense, which suffered an enormous (literally) loss this week with the suspension of defensive tackle Alan Branch.

Patriots Gameplan: Week 12 at New York Jets

November 25, 2016 by Mike Dussault

This year’s first Patriots-Jets game comes late in the season and with the Jets sitting at the bottom of the AFC East it’s certainly lacking some of the usual flash that this rivalry has. Despite the Jets down season, expect this one to be a battle down to the end. That’s pretty much how they always go, even when the Pats are en route to the top seed in the AFC and the Jets are busting out their golf clubs.

Three of the last eight matchups between these two have gone to overtime, including last year’s second-to-last game of the season which saw the Jets win 26-20. Overall the Patriots have won three of the last five games against the Jets by a total margin of 10 points.

No matter which Jets are on IR, or how bad Ryan Fitzpatrick has been or how much Revis has declined, the Patriots better be ready to go.

Here’s the gameplan to get it done.

Pats-Jets Q&A with Turn on the Jets

November 24, 2016 by Mike Dussault

Happy Thanksgiving! In the spirit of the day I’ve joined forces with a rival blogger once again to get some intel on the enemy!

It may be hard to believe but one of my favorite football bloggers out there is Joe Caporoso who runs TurnontheJets.com. Joe writes his site the same way I try to write mine, with level-headed and insightful analysis, so over the years we’ve enjoyed trading emails talking football. No, it’s not just a “you suck. no, you suck” marathon, and hopefully you can glean some insight into the game this weekend from someone who follows the Jets as closely as yours truly follows the Pats.

Here’s our back-and-forth for this weekend!

MD: What’s gone wrong with the Jets this year? Even I am shocked (and yes, a bit dismayed) that they’ve fallen apart and now I’m seeing calls for Bowles to be fired. How did it come to this so quickly?

JC: To start, they have the worst quarterback in the NFL by a decent sized margin. It is hard to appreciate just how bad Ryan Fitzpatrick has been without watching him week to week but it has been ugly. The Jets are basically starting every game with an anchor tied to their foot at the bottom of a lake with him under center. Outside of that, they have had severe regression in key areas like redzone efficiency and turnover margin coupled with player regression from Darrelle Revis, Calvin Pryor, Brandon Marshall and Marcus Gilchrist among others. So basically, everything is broken. Bowles is becoming the primary scapegoat because he’s been bad this year but few people want to dig deeper into the larger problems with this roster.

Week 12 Scouting Report: The New York Jets

November 23, 2016 by Adam Magnacca

The Patriots handled San Francisco about as well as we all hoped they would. The defense redeemed themselves in a pretty solid overall performance and the offense proved they could be just as intimidating sans Gronk and Chris Hogan. Now, here might be where the trap game comes. The Jets, while only having won three games, should not be overlooked. No team in the NFL is a gimme but this one might look pretty tempting. There is something about an away division game that could make for a more exciting game than Pats Nation may be comfortable with.

Here’s everything you need to know about the New York Jets, aka, “The Team of Many QBs (none of which are good).”

Week 12 at New York Jets

Sunday November 27

4:25 pm EST, CBS

High 40’s, 20% chance of rain, 9 mph winds

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PatsPropaganda AFC East Rivals Preview

September 7, 2016 by Rick Starke

The AFC East has been dominated by the Patriots for the past 15 years (aka the Brady/Belichick era), to a degree that hasn’t been otherwise seen in NFL history. The Patriots won the division title in 13 of those years. The two losses, to the Jets in 2002 and the Dolphins in 2008, came down to tiebreakers.

That doesn’t mean that division titles are always all but guaranteed, that division games aren’t still typically a bit tougher than non division games (math on that at the end of the article), or that we shouldn’t pay attention to what is happening with those other teams in the offseason.

Let’s take a look at the coaching staff of each team, the biggest “skill” names on each side of the ball (non offensive linemen, basically), and some of the offseason moves they’ve made.