A Week of Nothing
The trade deadline was this Tuesday. Considering that this season is beyond lost, you would think the Jets would try to move any asset left for future draft picks. The last player to be moved was Avery Williamson who went to the Steelers. Williamson was so eager to leave New York, he posed for a photo where he was asking for a ride out of the city. Unfortunately, the Jets were silent aside from that move. The irony of the Jets not trading any more players is that this would be the week to do so. I don’t know if anyone was paying attention, but our country was a little focused on something that happened this week. The Jets by all means could have traded Sam Darnold and nobody would have noticed.
For some reason unbeknown to humans, the Jets were on primetime this week
Considering how unwatchable the Jets are, it was embarrassing for the league to display this franchise to a national audience. We know that the NFL can’t flex schedule a game out of Monday night but this would have been a good time to make up some Covid-19 excuse and push the game a day earlier. Regardless, the Jets were hoping to earn their first win against a team that has practically owned them over the last two decades. The New England Patriots are a shell of their old self but they know that this game is a perfect opportunity to bounce back and salvage a sinking season.
The game looked to become a Patriots route as the betting experts labeled the Patriots as 10-point favorites. Like the Chiefs the week before, many were anticipating a blowout that would cover the spread against the hapless Jets team. The start of this game confused us all, the Jets looked uncannily good. Joe Flacco was filling in for the injured Darnold and was playing like he had nothing to lose (frankly, he doesn’t). The Jets were halting the Patriots offense and somehow led at halftime 20-10.
The Jets finally scored in the second half
As I mentioned in the previous edition of this series, the Jets offense flattens in the second half. They hadn’t scored a second-half touchdown since Week 5, making anyone watching this game almost certain that the Patriots were going to find a way back into this game. Well, the Jets did score a second-half touchdown. Joe Flacco tossed his third touchdown of the night with Breshad Perriman on the receiving end to give the Jets a 27-17 lead. The Jets also appeared to make a minor improvement in this week’s game as they managed 73 yards in the second half. Last week the offense had 63 so this terrible number doesn’t look as bad (baby steps here).
In Classic Jets manner, they blew the lead
The Jets had a ten-point lead at the half and again in the third quarter. Yet, anyone who knows how this team functions, knows that no lead is safe. Cam Newton suddenly looked like his MVP self and was picking apart the depleted defense with ease. The Jets suddenly possesses a touchdown lead and knew that they couldn’t give the ball back to the suddenly hot Patriots offense. So what does Joe Flacco do? He takes a deep shot into double coverage on the first play of the drive. The pass was intercepted by JC Jackson and gave the Patriots a prime opportunity to tie the game.
The Patriots naturally scored a touchdown to tie the game since the Jets’ defense clearly was just done for the night. But the jets fans knew not to fear, there was just under two minutes left in the game. This meant that the Jets could still orchestrate a quick drive for a game-winning field goal or manage the clock to force overtime. These strategies were non-existent as the offense ran three plays for three yards and only burned 1:10 of the game clock. The Patriots suddenly had the ball again with just enough time to get into field goal range and walk off the Monday night contest with a Nick Folk field goal.
The Jets have a bye next week and are already 10-point underdogs
This game felt unusual for the Jets as they were leading and competitive for most of it. Now they get a week off and many of us wonder if this is a team that deserves a week off. I know the players need time to recover and particularly, get away from the facilities as best as they can. Yet, this is a team that almost makes you wonder if they have been treating every week as a bye week. The season is beyond over and now we have to keep the speculation on whether Trevor Lawrence will pull a John Elway or not. Next week looks to be a week off for Infinite Jets but we must always stay tuned for stupidity.
