NFL preview: New York Jets face New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium
Thursday 16 October 2014 14:54, UK
The struggling New York Jets head to New England to face their fierce rivals the Patriots for the next Thursday Night Football game with the mood in the two camps at almost complete opposites.
It’s always an eagerly-awaited divisional showdown, and while on paper it looks like a home banker for the Pats given their recent form, there’s nothing like visiting the house of your biggest rivals to stir up a performance.
Rex Ryan’s Jets have lost five on the skid and you have to feel he is desperately clinging on to his job at the moment, with a sixth loss in a row giving Jets officials something to think about as they’ll already be looking at next season.
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Six could be the magic number, as a Patriots win would be their sixth at home over the Jets on the spin in regular season action – and they’d like nothing more than to pile the misery onto Ryan.
Tom Brady’s back!
He’s been written off before, and every time he comes back, but this year it looked serious with the now 37-year-old having a slow start to the season culminating in being bullied during a 41-14 beat down in Kansas City in front of a national Monday night audience.
That sparked one of the angriest team performances you’ll see as a fired-up Brady and Patriots smashed the Bengals before they continued their improvement with a good win in Buffalo. Brady has six TDs and no picks in the last two wins as the Patriots piled up 80 points and against a Jets defence that has allowed 31 points three times in their five defeats that spells trouble.
Oh and just to add to the mix – touchdown machine Rob Gronkoswki looks to be nearing full speed again.
Rex on the way?
Jets head coach Rex Ryan admitted he’s at his lowest point of his six years with the team, and his job looks on the line heading to Gillette Stadium. There just looks no way back for one of the league’s most charismatic coaches as even his famed defence has been leaking points during this five-game losing streak.
On offence they’re dead last in passing, can’t really run the ball either, while in Ryan’s specialist defence they’ve averaged over 28 points allowed in their five defeats. Having such an anaemic offence obviously doesn’t help and problems on both sides of the ball often spell danger to struggling head coaches. Peyton Manning was impressed with the Jets D on Sunday, but a sizeable Patriots win could signal the beginning of the end for Ryan.
Geno struggles
Ryan isn't the only man in New York with job worries, as QB Geno Smith has had a tough couple of weeks, not only on the field but also off it - missing a team meeting and then producing an outburst blaming his problems on the notoriously tough Big Apple media, which is not the way to improve your popularity around the place.
The second-year man leads the NFL’s worst passing attack, and turnovers have killed them with seven interceptions and five fumbles already this season leading him to have the worst passer rating in the league. Those stats just don’t add up, and, although Ryan is keeping faith with him, the calls for Michael Vick to start will only grow with another bad showing.
Injuries
The Patriots are missing two big names, one on each side of the ball, coming off their win in Buffalo. Their leading rusher Stevan Ridley is out for the season with a knee injury, while their leading tackler, linebacker Jerod Mayo, has suffered a similar injury to cut short his campaign.
For the Jets, their leaky secondary got even thinner when starting cornerback Dee Milliner saw his season end with an Achilles injury on Sunday – and coming up against an in-form Brady could hardly be a tougher match-up.
Revis a Pat
Former Jets star cornerback Darrelle Revis has played against his former team before, for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but Thursday will see him face Ryan and his old team dressed in the one uniform that will sicken them more than any other.
Ryan actually said as much in a pre-game interview, and Jets fans will also hate seeing one of their best players of recent times playing against them as a Patriot. The fact the Jets secondary is such a mess won’t help matters either, while New England’s pass defence is the third best in the NFL with Revis undoubtedly helping.
The original shutdown corner, Revis is being deployed in a similar way by New England with him sitting on the opposition’s best receiver. With the Jets so bad at passing the ball and Smith’s interception problems, Revis will not see a lot of action on Thursday.
Quotes
"Hey, we might be counted out. We're not dead. We're going to fight our tails off. It's a resilient bunch. As I told our team, a team that doesn't quit is hard to beat. If you're fighting a guy that never quits, he's hard to beat. Our guys, we ain't quitting. As we say, we've just begun to fight,” Rex Ryan issues a rallying cry to his team.
"He's one of the best, if not the best. It's going to be, if we have one-on-one matchups at all, it's going to be tough,” Eric Decker on facing Darrelle Revis.
“I think it doesn’t really matter what their record is coming into this game because they are a great rival. We had a couple of bad weeks and have turned it around. They can turn it around just as easy,” Tom Brady on the Jets.
