Well, that was ugly. Just like I thought it would be. Here's what jumps out to me...
1. The good news is that the Jets are bad enough that we were still able to beat them without two top offensive weapons and fielding a receiving corps full of rookies.
2. The defense has looked good the last couple of weeks. Hard to judge where they are truly at, though, as they were playing offenses lead by rookies quarterbacks that could really be worse than the offense we're fielding right now, though. But the starting secondary is solid. Hopefully no injuries on that front.
3. Ridley, to me, looked like a guy that was too overly concerned with holding onto the ball and was tentative at best hitting the hole. He needs to carry it high and tight and let the rest take care of itself. Blount looked horrible. If Bolden can't beat Blount out, then that speaks volumes.
4. Never thought I would see the day where the Patriots would actually field a passing attack that was worse than 2006, but that's what we're looking at right now. Dobson and Thompkins showed how steep the learning curve is in the Ehrhardt-Perkins. On one play, Thompkins was Brady's primary read and ran what looked to either be a Go or post route (he disappeared off the top of the screen) and Brady hastily threw it away and looked frustrated. Dobson has a bad case of the drops and needs to get over that quick. If they can get it together, they're both legitimate deep threats that can spread the field out for Gronk, Amendola, and Edelman. But they have a loooooong way to go.
5. I can understand Brady's frustration. He's in the twilight years of his career and the team has let his favorite receiver go and has saddled him with rookies. That said, he needs to control his emotions (by his own admission) better.
6. The defense was doing a lot more one gapping than I had previously seen last night. It's becoming clear how Belichick is defending mobile quarterbacks. It started with Tebow in 2011. He lets the DT's clog the running lanes up the A and B gaps and the DE's or OLB's (depending on the set) set the edge to contain the quarterback and keep him in the pocket. We saw it last week with Manuel and last night with Geno. Though last night, the Pats looked more aggressive than they did last week. By my count, there was only one time where the DE's overpursued and lost contain, and Geno picked up a first down with his feet. Outside of that, they did a pretty good job of setting the edge and keeping him in the pocket.
7. I thought Harmon looked pretty decent in what little time he was out there last night. Granted it's a very small sample size, but he didn't seem to be out of position and he looked more than willing to take on the run. If he keeps looking like that, hopefully they can find a way to ease him into the starting line-up next to McCourty.
In all, the offense looked horrific. Like I said, they have a long way to go. The soft schedule has helped so far and has allowed the Pats to take control of the division. Now we really, REALLY need Gronk to come back. Hopefully it's this week so he can knock some of the rust off before Atlanta.