The Jets lost to the Patriots on Thursday Night Football 27-14.
I think we all need to acknowledge is the quality difference in these teams and the difference in where these teams are in their respective
cycles.
You might say those are excuses. I’d say calling the Patriots a better team is hardly excuse-making. It’s fact. This season New England is one of the best teams in the league. The Jets are at the bottom. The Patriots are where the Jets hope to be in a couple of seasons. They have successfully executed a rebuild.
From a Jets perspective, it’s frustrating to watch the Patriots fall from a dynasty to the bottom of the league and then bounce back to the top of the league in a couple of years in a span when the Jets have been at the bottom of the league the entire time.
If the Jets use their resources wisely, they can end up on New England’s level in just a couple of seasons.
That opportunity is the result of two recent trades. And make no mistake. Those trades made an already bad team worse in the short run.
After the Jets beat Cleveland without Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams last week, I guess it could have been tempting to suggest that the Jets lost talent but maybe weren’t worse off as a team. Most people would have understood even in the aftermath of a victory that this was a stretch. This game erased all doubt.
This was a Jets defense that got completely exposed, and the key players were missed. The cornerback group simply did not hold up against New England’s receivers. The defensive line didn’t generate a whole lot of pressure. Faced with a young quarterback who seems to be emerging as a star, that is a bad combination.
It’s frustrating to see the replacements not step up. Brandon Stephens and Jarvis Brownlee Jr. have shown good things lately. Will McDonald was coming off a 4 sack game. Jermaine Johnson is a quality player. Life is just a lot tougher without Sauce and Quinnen.
Life is tough in general with the offense and the quarterback the Jets have. The game started promisingly for the Jets as the team engineered a 14 play touchdown drive to get things started. It was an excellent script by Tanner Engstrand, mixing designed quarterback runs with straight runs and a gadget play or two. Just as significant, Justin Fields was decisive. A talented runner who is frequently too hesitant to run, Fields took off if he saw a lane. The results were good.
Unfortunately, a good script can only take you so far. As the Jets moved to their conventional offense, things stalled. This is a team lacking playmaking talent, particularly with Garrett Wilson out. It can’t afford to get behind the sticks. Justin Fields missing throws or Adonai Mitchell letting good throws go through his hands are mistakes this team can’t have.
In the end the results here were not exactly surprising. The Patriots are a good team. The Jets are a bad team.
The Patriots have good talent. The Jets were already short on it and sold off their elite players. Those deals might pay dividends in the long run, but in the here and now they surely hurt.
Unpredictable though Thursday night divisional games might be, all of these factors led to a very predictable result.
