5 takeaways from the Patriots’ 26-6 win over the New York Jets
COMMENTARY
Patriots’ 26-6 victory over the Jets, when they sealed home-field advantage in their season finale…
HOMEFIELD IS THEIRS
It wasn’t as clean and complete as the 19-0 some were forecasting over the summer, but in the end the Patriots find themselves exactly where they expected to be at the end of the regular season – as the No. 1 seed in the AFC playoffs.
The luxury of home-field advantage looked far from certain at various points throughout the campaign including an opening-night whooping at the hands of the Chiefs, after a 2-2 start, during a historically bad first six games for the defense, and even after Jesse James seemed to score a go-ahead touchdown for the Steelers in a mid-December matchup that ultimately decided the conference seeding tiebreaker. Yet here they are again, the conference tournament running through Foxborough for the third time in four years (with the Patriots having advanced to, and won, the Super Bowl in each of the past two).
It’s the result of winning 11 of 12 games after a last-second loss to the Panthers on Oct. 1, and in that stretch the Patriots have nearly doubled-up their opponents, outscoring them by an aggregate of 329-168. Since a Week 9 bye, the Pats have won seven of eight games, and the 27-24 nailbiter over Pittsburgh is the only game New England won by less than 18 points.
Most would agree this Patriots team isn’t on par with some of the great clubs that have defined the past 17 years, but through a variety of injuries that have sapped their starting units in all three phases of the game they managed to put themselves in as good a position as they could. And now with fortification coming as injured players return for the postseason, it’s hard to bet against them getting the two wins they’ll need for another conference title.
BRADY’S FINAL MVP STATEMENT
Tom Brady bookended his regular season with a pair of games in which he completed less than half of his pass attempts, hitting on just 18 of 37 throws to connect on sub-50 percent for the first time since a dreadful showing in the opener.
Sunday’s struggles were likely the result of the cold, or the wind, but Brady still managed to throw a couple of touchdowns and also ended a streak of five straight games with an interception. With that, the quarterback finished his season with 4,577 yards through the air, 32 touchdowns, eight picks, and a completion percentage of 66.4 percent.
Carson Wentz of the Eagles finished with one more touchdown and one fewer interception despite missing the final month with a knee injury, while Todd Gurley’s strong close gives the Rams’ running back a case for the NFL’s MVP award, too. But given the injuries he has been forced to work around, and given what these Patriots might look like without their otherworldly signal caller, there appears a legitimate chance that honor might be headed to Patriots Place on Brady’s behalf for a third time.
DION LEWIS’S MONSTER SEASON
Along with 19-0 talk, there was also chatter in the late summer about whether Dion Lewis might be fighting for his job, or might at least be trade bait as the fourth option in a crowded New England backfield. He played quite a bit in the preseason, then seemed buried behind James White, Rex Burkhead, and Mike Gillislee when the real games began.
As the Pats go to the postseason, however, a case can be made that Lewis is New England’s most important player aside from Brady and tight end Rob Gronkowski. With 93 yards on 26 carries against the Jets, Lewis finished the season with 896 yards on the ground (he had 46 through four weeks), and his six catches for 40 yards on Sunday gave him at least five for the third time in four weeks (after he made 14 catches, total, in the first 11 games).
Lewis also scored twice for the second straight week, again with one touchdown catch and one touchdown run, and finished the season with nine scores. Between his ability to gain yards after contact, to elude would-be tacklers, and to read defenses, Lewis is a lethal multi-purpose threat that stands to become even more dangerous when the returns of James White and Rex Burkhead allow Josh McDaniels to deploy him in situations that are more specifically suited to his skills (than to those of a traditional every down back).
Lewis could be even more of a factor now than he was when scoring three touchdowns in last year’s AFC divisional game – and what’s especially encouraging is that after a couple of fumbles somewhat spoiled that performance, Lewis hasn’t fumbled once this season. That bugaboo might be behind him. So might the lingering effects of his knee reconstruction. And the last month or so has shown what Lewis is capable of doing when that’s the case.
COOKS A FOCUS
In years past we’ve seen Bill Belichick’s teams use the final regular season game as a way of trying something or attempting to get a specific player indoctrinated or involved. In that vein it seems worth noting, then, that Tom Brady targeted Brandin Cooks on 11 throws Sunday, not including another that was heaved deep downfield and drew a pass interference penalty.
The Pats also tried Cooks on three run plays – one of which netted 12 yards – and there appeared to be a concerted effort to get him involved in a number of different ways. Nothing was too far outside of the ordinary, but in the previous four weeks Cooks had totaled just nine catches on 22 targets, and while he had already clinched a 1,000-yard season coming into the game, that inefficiency had the connection between he and Brady looking somewhat tenuous.
The pair wasn’t exactly sharp Sunday, with Cooks snagging five balls for a team-high 79 yards (plus the penalty yardage). But with the playoffs next, more valuable than the production might’ve been the purpose.
JAMES HARRISON ARRIVES
For most of the afternoon, ex-Steeler James Harrison was quiet. He was on the field for a number of snaps, but didn’t make an impact until early in the third quarter when he came up in zone coverage and crunched Robby Anderson short of the sticks on a third-down conversion attempts. That kept the Patriots’ perfection intact in those situations, and the Jets finished 0-for-12 on third downs.
On the final series, though, the Harrison of old surfaced. He came barreling from Bryce Petty’s left and stripped the ball from the Jets’ QB for a strip sack, then on the next play New York tried to negate him with a double-team but he still got home, and ended the visitors’ season by dropping Petty yet again.
It remains to be seen whether the coaches saw enough over the game’s first 59 minutes to figure Harrison into their postseason plans, or if the outside linebacker can assimilate himself into the system over the next two weeks enough to make a significant difference. But at the very least those three plays showed evidence of speed, burst, and power – and situationally those seem traits Belichick and Matt Patricia could find a way to capitalize upon.
