FOXBORO, MA — Bill Belichick has put his team on “red alert”.
With the Jets heading to Foxboro for their second meeting, New England will be looking for redemption when these two AFC East rivals clash on Sunday. After taking a 19-7 lead during their first meeting with just under 10-minutes remaining in the game, the Patriots allowed 13 unanswered points on consecutive possessions before losing to the Jets 20-19. The Patriots drove inside the red-zone a season high six times, but scored only one touchdown and settled for four field goals. This is a must-win game for New England in their quest to get back to .500, but most importantly it would even their division record at 2-2.
“The point that I’ve tried to emphasize to our team is that we just have to be on red alert every play,” said Belichick during his press conference on Wednesday. “There just isn’t time to be not securing the football, late on the snap count, late on a coverage, losing contain on a running play or a quarterback, things like that. They’ll make you pay for it.”
That was the problem during their first meeting a month ago today at the Meadowlands.
New England actually had a 19-7 lead late in the game on a touchdown pass from quarterback Drew Bledsoe to tight end Eric Bjornson, giving the Patriots what should have been a 12-point cushion with just under 10-minutes left in the game. But New England was unable to stop Jets receiver Wayne Chrebet, who had actually been listed as questionable coming into the game after suffering a leg strain during practice. He beat Patriots cornerback Antonio Langham for two fourth quarter touchdowns en route to a 20-19 come from behind victory over the Patriots.
After Sunday’s win over the Colts, Bill Belichick said on Wednesday that New England didn’t even review the tape from the Indianapolis game, and instead they’re putting their entire focus into this week’s rematch with the Jets in Foxboro.
“After the Monday night game that was a short week for us before the Minnesota game, and we didn’t get a chance to watch the Jet Tape with the team,” said Belichick. “We showed a few things but basically we didn’t get to watch it, so Monday after the Indianapolis game we spent most of our time watching the Jet tape rather than the Indianapolis tape. We’re trying to accelerate the preparations a little bit here for the Jets.”
Their preparation will also have to include back-up quarterback Ray Lucas after Vinny Testaverde suffered a pinched nerve on Sunday in their loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Testaverde is currently listed as questionable for this week’s game but nevertheless Belichick says the team will look at tape of both players.
“We’ll certainly look at tape of both players, and make sure the players have an understanding of what each player’s strengths are and what they do a little bit differently,” said Belichick. “There’s certain plays that we’ll run with more emphasis running than the other. Like Ray Lucas running the quarterback draw, Ray running roll-out plays and that type of thing. Vinny’s got a couple of his favorites that the game never goes very long before he throws them. When he’s in there those are plays you have to be ready to defend so things like that. We’ll probably have [Michael] Bishop do some Ray Lucas-type things to get us prepared for the elusiveness and the speed that he has in the pocket.”
New England’s defense was certainly in position to make the plays down the stretch during their last meeting. Antonio Langham was right on Chrebet on his first touchdown grab, but the ball went right through the cornerback’s hands and Chrebet came away with the score. On the second touchdown Langham was again in position to make a play on the ball but Chrebet made a great adjustment and simply made a great catch. Both times the coverage was there, but both times it simply wasn’t enough to keep Chrebet from scoring.
“Nobody cares about being close,” said Belichick. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re close or whether you’re 50-yards off them, both plays were touchdowns. Close isn’t going get it against Vinny and it’s not going to get it against Wayne either.”
“Yeah it was good coverage and it was close, but we didn’t make a play so it wasn’t good enough. He made it, and that’s all anybody remembers or cares about.”
A win on Sunday may be just the thing to help them forget all about it.
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Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.
