5 keys for a Patriots win over the Jets

Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis shakes hands with Tom Brady. Winslow Townson/AP

By Henry McKenna @McKennAnalysis

December 23, 2015

4 minutes to read

COMMENTARY

The Jets have a wildcard bid as motivation when they play the Patriots Sunday. The Patriots, on the other hand, continue to show they’ve got a lot to lose with injuries. New England is 2-2 in its last four games, and has lost many key players to the trainer’s room. The Jets, meanwhile, have won their last four games, and are surging for a wild card spot behind an efficent Ryan Fitzpatrick and an elite defensive line led by Mo Wilkerson.

The Jets were a pesky opponent in the Patriots’ Week 7 win. But it seems they were just getting started — the depleted Patriots could struggle to fend off a fiesty Jets team.

Here are the five keys for a Patriots win over the Jets.

1. Double team Brandon Marshall with a safety and Logan Ryan

Ryan struggled with Titans rookie receiver Dorial Green-Beckham, an athletic but not particularly savvy wideout, and the second-year corner couldn’t account for Green-Beckham’s catch radius. When Ryan turned his back to the quarterback, Marcus Mariota and Zach Mettenberger threw in the general direction of Green-Beckham, who snagged the ball with ease. Brandon Marshall is a significantly more refined pass-catcher than Green-Beckham, and is similarly difficult to cover.

Ryan had relative success covering Texans wideout DeAndre Hopkins. But he had help from Devin McCourty, and he no longer has that luxury, with McCourty (and likely Patrick Chung) out with an injury. Duron Harmon and Jordan Richards, both high draft picks for the Patriots, will need to pitch in covering Marshall.

2. Keep using James White as a receiver

Just when the Patriots were starting to look like they were healthy again, they lost three players to injury. It sounds like Danny Amendola will be back on sideline (and to be fair to the supposedly “injury-prone’’ wideout, he’s only missed one game this season). Rob Gronkowski can’t — and probably shouldn’t try to — catch 12 passes per game until the playoffs. So the Patriots will look to get White a higher volume of touches.

As soon as anyone mentions White, Tom Brady starts using the buzzword, “trust,’’ which means Brady looks to White often on passing downs. And it also means offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels is dialing up plays that feature White, like the 30-yard screen pass against the Titans. Most important, it seems to mean White understands the offense, which is difficult for pass-catchers to pick up. It’s why recent acquisition Leonard Hankerson may not be able to produce immediately.

3. Don’t be afraid of Darrelle Revis

Julian Edelman got the better of Revis at times in the first Patriots-Jets matchup in 2015. Of course, Edelman — and Amendola — won’t be playing, so the Jets will have the option of putting Revis on Brandon LaFell or Gronkowski.

Revis’s supposed decline is debatable, but the cornerback has made such a name for himself that teams are gameplanning plays to be Revis, according to Former Philadelphia Eagles star Eric Allen.

The Patriots could do the same — just to put an exclamation mark on Bill Belichick’s sense of letting go of players before they decline. Revis was with the Patriots in 2014, but Belchick let him go after getting outbid by the Jets.

LaFell may not gash Revis for big gainers, but a guy like Gronk is hard to defend in single-coverage, no matter who the defender is.

4. Swarm Chris Ivory between the tackles

Chris Ivory has no trouble generating big plays, and he does so without dancing or bouncing outside the tackles. He runs up the middle, plows his way through would-be tacklers, and is even racking up yards between the tackles in the screen game. His run against the Dolphins was absurd.

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One tackler won’t be enough to bring Ivory down, so Jamie Collins and Jerod Mayo will be in charge of helping the Patriots defensive linemen gang tackle Ivory before he gets up to speed.

5. Keep giving Joey Iosefa snaps — but maybe not touches

Iosefa is one of the few fulbacks left in the NFL, and thus he provides a unique skill set that most teams aren’t accustomed to defending. The Patriots can maximize their power run game by giving Iosefa snaps as a lead blocker and ball carier.

His power running style is what the Patriots need to close out the season. So long as he can hold onto the football — and he hasn’t showed otherwise — he’s deserved of five to 10 touches per game, though the arrival of Jackson may cut into his workload. Even when Iosefa wasn’t bowling over cornerbacks, he has still managed to make an impact as a blocker. Scott Chandler was inactive for the Patriots on Sunday, and perhaps the Patriots didn’t feel they needed the solid blocking tight end, because they had Iosefa. With the running back situation fluid, the Patriots might have found a practice squad hero in Iosefa.