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The Patriots’ offense should be able to do what it wants when it wants against the Jets, making it eight straight wins
MVP frontrunner Drake Maye and the Patriots host the Jets Thursday night.
Welcome to Season 14, Episode 11 of the Unconventional Preview, a serious yet lighthearted, nostalgia-tinted look at the Patriots’ weekly matchup . . .
Get ready for the starkest contrasts in quarterback styles you’ll see all season, perhaps in the entire league.
Patriots quarterback Drake Maye is coming off a stirring road win over Baker Mayfield and the Buccaneers in which he had his lowest completion rate of the season (16 of 31, 51.6 percent), struggled early throwing a wet football, and yet enhanced his NFL Most Valuable Player candidacy with some sensational and clutch throws in a 28-23 victory, most notably a 54-yard bomb to Mack Hollins on a third-and-14 play in the fourth quarter. It wasn’t Maye’s most statistically excellent performance, but it was probably his most resilient.
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Meanwhile, the Jets counter with Justin Fields, an outstanding runner but a passer who still is nowhere near refined five years into his career (and on his third team).
Part of this is because of injury, but Fields has thrown for fewer than 55 yards in a game four times this season, including Sunday against the Browns. He also has had fewer than 10 completions in a game four times, and has thrown just six touchdown passes in eight starts.
In other words: There is no team that is more justified in envying the Patriots’ good fortune in landing Maye than the Jets.
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Kick it off, Borregales, and let’s get this thing started …
Three players worth watching other than the quarterbacks
TreVeyon Henderson: The rookie second-round pick delivered his long-awaited breakout game against the Buccaneers, breaking loose for 55- and 69-yard touchdown runs en route to his final stat line of 147 yards on just 14 carries.
It was lost in all of the other fun discussion points after arguably the Patriots’ most affirming win of the season (I still lean slightly toward the Week 5 win in Buffalo), but Henderson nearly had another breakaway run that almost certainly would have gone for a touchdown.
On third and 9 from the Patriots’ 19-yard line with 3:55 left in the first quarter, Henderson took a toss right and burst through the first two levels of the Buccaneers’ defense. Had cornerback Jamel Dean not lunged to trip Henderson after a 16-yard gain, he was probably on his way to an 81-yard touchdown run.
Henderson is still a work in progress — on carries other than the 16-yarder and the pair of long TD runs, he had just 7 yards on 11 attempts, so a little more consistency would be a welcome accompaniment to his explosiveness. The Jets’ 25th-ranked run defense (138.2 yards per game) offers Henderson a chance to build on Sunday’s success.
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I do have to say, after perusing the franchise’s single-season yards-per-carry leaders, I can’t think of any Patriots running back who was a similarly dangerous threat to go the distance every time he touched the ball as Henderson, who offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels says is the fastest back he has ever coached.
Maybe Dion Lewis (896 yards, 5.0 per carry, 6 TDs) in 2017? Tony Collins (1,049 yards, 4.8 per carry, 10 TDs, 10 fumbles) in 1983? Or perhaps Horace Ivory (693 yards, 4.9 per carry, 11 TDs) in 1978. It’s a short, and speedy, list.
Breece Hall: Let’s not go so far as to call Hall, the shifty dual-threat running back, the entire Jets offense. But we will say this: If the Patriots can contain him, the Jets are going to find it very difficult to reach the red zone, let alone the end zone.
The Jets had just 169 total yards last week in their 27-20 win over the Browns. Hall tallied 125 of those yards, running 21 times for 83 yards (including a 30-yarder) and taking his one reception 42 yards for a touchdown.
If you require further evidence of the offensive burden he carried — and will carry Thursday — the Jets’ second-leading rusher against the Browns was Fields, with 28 yards. And no other Jet had more than one reception or 4 receiving yards.
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Hall, who has rushed for 664 yards and a pair of touchdowns while averaging 4.8 yards per carry, also has 22 catches for 220 yards and the one touchdown. In four career games against the Patriots, he has rushed for 330 yards and two touchdowns, averaging 4 yards per attempt, while catching eight passes for 59 yards without a score.
That’s a pretty good rate of success against such a dynamic player, and the Patriots’ current run defense (which allows a league-best 79.2 yards per game) is the best they have had in years. But given how much the Jets lean on Hall, it’s sure to be a busy day for Robert Spillane, who leads the Patriots with 81 tackles.
Brenden Schooler: The Jets’ defense was depleted at the trade deadline, and their offense is Hall and a cast of false hopes. But as we were reminded time and again through the years, all three phases of football matter equally, and that third phase, special teams, is where the Jets are dangerous.
The Browns actually led, 7-0, last week, but two Jets special teams plays just 36 seconds apart in the first quarter flipped the game in their favor. After David Njoku’s 9-yard TD catch gave the Browns that early lead, Kene Nwangwu returned the ensuing kickoff 99 yards for a touchdown.
When Dillon Gabriel expertly guided the Browns to a three-and-out on the next possession, it was punt returner Isaiah Williams’s turn to make an explosive play. He bolted free for a 74-yard touchdown, giving the Jets a 14-7 lead. They wouldn’t trail again.
Schooler, one of the Patriots’ captains, is the proxy here for all of their special teams units, which must be on point — and disciplined — against the Jets. The Patriots have 20 special teams penalties this season, the most in the league, including two last week against the Buccaneers.
The flashback
Tom Brady and Bill Belichick teamed up for 41 playoff games, including nine Super Bowls, during their 20 seasons together in New England. They won 30 of those games. Given the staggering longevity and level of their mutual success, it makes sense that a postseason win here or there would fade to the back of a fan’s memory over time.
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For me, one of those wins is the Patriots’ 37-16 victory over the Jets at Gillette Stadium in the wild-card round of the 2006 postseason. The game is one of the three times the Patriots and Jets have met in the playoffs, and the other two remain fresh in mind for different reasons.
In 1985, the Patriots upset the Jets, 26-14, in a wild-card game, their first of an unprecedented three road victories en route to the Super Bowl. (Not sure how that one went, will look it up and get back to you.)
Twenty-five years later, the Patriots suffered one of the most stunning defeats of the Brady/Belichick era, losing, 28-21, at Gillette to loudmouth Rex Ryan’s team in a 2010 divisional-round matchup. The Patriots were coming off a 14-2 regular season that included a 45-3 thumping of the Jets in Week 13. Fifteen seasons later, I still can’t believe they lost to Mark Sanchez in the playoffs.
There are good reasons, I suppose, why that 2006 game has moved to the backburner among Patriots memories. It wasn’t a Super Bowl season, and their other two playoff games (a comeback win over the Chargers, and a blown 21-3 lead to Peyton Manning and the Colts in a crushing AFC title game loss) are more memorable.
But all playoff wins are worth remembering, right?
So, here’s the quick synopsis of that semi-forgotten, at least by me, 2006 win. Corey Dillon scored from 11 yards to give the Patriots a 7-0 lead on the first possession, and though it was closer than expected (17-10) at halftime, the Patriots never trailed.
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The Patriots put it away in the game’s final six minutes on a Kevin Faulk 7-yard touchdown run and an Asante Samuel pick-6 22 seconds after Faulk’s TD.
Grievance of the week
Man, it’s getting tough out there in the streets for fans and 2-6 p.m. sports radio hosts who don’t feel complete without complaining about something real or imagined about their football team. Mike Vrabel and Maye have negated all of our grievances! How dare they restore the good times!?
Actually, I do have one, but it’s retroactive and a what-if. Can you imagine what this franchise would look like if those that a) wanted to take Ohio State receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. with the No. 3 pick in the 2024 draft, or b) wanted to trade out of the franchise-rejuvenating pick that became Maye to accumulate more picks and draft later in the first round won out?
Say what you will about Eliot Wolf’s array of mistakes that draft, but he deserves credit for staying put and drafting Maye. Not everyone would have, and I suspect that includes a certain fella in Chapel Hill, N.C.
Prediction, or I wonder who the Jets’ quarterback will be next year? …
Thursday night games often bring on weird plot twists, probably because of short rest and condensed preparation time. Prime example: Sanchez’s infamous butt-fumble against the Patriots happened in a Thursday night game, on Thanksgiving 2012.
But there’s no need to try to anticipate the unexpected in this one. All the Jets can do with any level of competence on offense is run the ball, and the Patriots haven’t allowed an opposing runner to gain more than 53 yards in a game this season. The Jets also have the worst turnover differential in the league (minus-10).
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Meanwhile, the Patriots feature a prolific passing offense (241.4 yards per game, eighth in the league) and average 26.5 points (eighth). The Jets dealt defensive tackle Quinnen Williams and cornerback Sauce Gardner at the trade deadline, leaving coach Aaron Glenn as arguably the best defensive back on the roster. His team does not have a single interception this season.
Though pass-rusher Will McDonald is one to watch — he had four sacks against the Browns — the offense should have little trouble doing what it wants when it wants. Make it eight straight. Patriots 37, Jets 9.
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