Joke Was On “Favored” Patriots In Loss to Jets
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Posted Under: 2000 Patriots Season
HOME > Patriots Blog > 2000 Patriots Season
FOXBOROUGH — Win this game? Is that what we all really thought would happen?
Silly of us.
Las Vegas had the Patriots a three-point favorite. The Jets lost at home to Pittsburgh last week, 20-3. Vinny Testaverde suffered a pinched nerve, and was not even sure of starting the game this week, let alone finishing it.
Meanwhile, here’s our Patriots. Cool, confident, cocky. Two wins over Denver and Indianapolis. All of a sudden, everyone in the northeast corner of this great nation is actually talking playoffs for a team that started 0-4. The good feelings of 1996 were back, and there was no reason to think anything but positive going into today.
So, here come the poor Jets to Foxborough. Downtrodden after losing at home to a Steeler squad nowhere near as powerful as in past years. Here come the Patriots, ready to smack the Jets after pulling off that improbable comeback win on Week 2 down in the Joisey swamps. But most of all, here come the Jets without Bill Parcells on the sideline, not even present in the stadium. No jinx, no border war, nothing.
The one problem was that they still had to play the game.
It was a lot like a frat initiation. You could just see every Patriot grimacing and saying to the nearest Jet, “Thank you sir, may I have another?” This wasn’t about a border war. This was about who has the better football organization, top to bottom, and why that better organization prevailed Sunday afternoon at Foxborough.
Face it, the Jets spanked the Patriots in every way possible. Gamesmanship. Coaching. Preparation. Execution. Long term effects of drafts and free agent decisions.
Did we leave anything out? Oh, yes, the Jet linebackers run the ball better than any Patriot on the field. You name it, the Jets were better Sunday night. The final was 34-17, but it felt like 54-7.
This game was won by the Jets in two phases this week.
First of all, Al Groh (the man has come a long way from new and creative uses for a shovel) did a masterful job of media work this week. His non-disclosure of the status of Testaverde was the work of a master. Testaverde and Ray Lucas helped out also with a bevy of non-speak. While the Patriots made sure you all knew that Chad Eaton was a scratch for Sunday well in advance, Fox and CBS treated the Jets’ decision to start Testaverde as a news bulletin. That’s how long the Jets kept everyone in the dark. The Patriots had no way of knowing who to really prepare for at quarterback.
The next phase came on the game’s third play. Kevin Faulk should be horsewhipped but good this week. First by Bill Belichick, then by Charlie Weis, then by Drew Bledsoe. Bledsoe showed today that he has much better ball handling skills than Faulk, but we’ll get to that later.
On the third play of the game, the Patriots had a third and two at their own 35. Bledsoe hit Faulk in the flat for a first down. But on his way down to the ground, Rick Lyle hit Faulk, and Faulk simply dropped the ball as if it were covered with grease. Bryan Cox recovered, and the Jets immediately took over at the Patriot 38.
That was the ball game. Oh, the Patriots did make it close at 14-10 later on, but the early fumble by Faulk set the tone for the entire game. It gave the Jets the spark of confidence they needed right away, and they never relinquished their stranglehold on the game.
The Jets marched right into the end zone, converting three for three on third downs. Curtis Martin barreled in from three yards out to put the Jets up early.
That fumble recovery fired up the Jets more than any Patriot could ever imagine. On their ensuing drive’s second play, Bledsoe was beseiged with a hail of Jet rushers. Bledsoe let a little flick pass fly, Mo Lewis tipped it, and Victor Green picked up the floating ball and ran 21 yards for a touchdown. It was 14-0 Jets before you could say “Here we go again!”
This paved the way for a Jet defensive performance that forced six Patriot turnovers, and seven sacks of Bledsoe. It was a journey back to the good old days of 0-4, except that this game did not feature the Patriots trying to win the game on their last possession.
For the first time all season, Belichick was greatly outcoached. Groh devised schemes that confounded the Patriot offensive line all afternoon, and made better use of Martin in this game after the Patriots held the greatest running back in their history to only 47 yards in the first meeting.
Three of the sacks of Bledsoe were recorded by rookie Bobby Abraham. The most maddening thing about these sacks was that no adjustment was ever made to help poor Bruce Armstrong out, who was obviously overmatched all day. Abraham would have had a fourth, except Armstrong held him and was flagged for it.
Another thing that helped the Jets greatly in their afinity to sack Bledsoe was the Patriots’ insistence on the five-wideout set. The Patriots would do well to abandon this formation until they can get better protection for Bledsoe. Defenses see this, and send in more than five guys on Bledsoe. The result is usually a sack, rarely a completion.
Offensively, the Jets stayed away from the men they figured the Patriots would key on (Wayne Chrebet, Dedric Ward) and went with Martin. Result? Chrebet and Ward combine for three catches between them, but Martin gains 143 yards rushing, scores three touchdowns, and his team wins by 17. That, my friend, is called being outcoached. Sloppy tackling didn’t help either, though in fairness you must say that the loss of Eaton really hurt in stopping the run today.
One other key juncture hurt the Patriots today, and it came from someone who ought to receive free gifts from every member of the Jet family for his charitable acts of kindness to the Jets this season. Just after the Patriots scored on a nine-yard run in the second quarter by Faulk to make it 14-10 Jets, the Patriots needed to stop the Jets defensively on the next drive to assert themselves and wrest back control of the game and the momentum.
Seven plays into that drive, the Jets had the ball at the Patriot 46, facing third down and 13. Testaverde hit Fred Baxter over the middle, but he was stopped at the 38, bringing up fourth down and a punting situation.
Wrong. Flag down. Antonio Langham, the newest favorite Patriot of every Jet team member, was flagged for illegal contact. The man whose hands became invisible four Monday nights ago in the Meadowlands just turned a stopped drive into an eventual Jet touchdown. Nine plays later, Martin ran in four yards on a left end run to put the Jets up 21-10, and they were never challenged again.
Langham’s penalty negated any possibility of a comeback, but it all began with Faulk’s fumble. Making that fumble even more embarrassing was a 13-yard touchdown run by Bledsoe in the fourth quarter, which was more an act of respectability than an honest comeback attempt.
Bledsoe took the snap and bolted up the middle on a straight keeper. Bledsoe was hit at the five, shifted the ball to his right hand, then put his left hand over the ball and bowled into the end zone. Two hands tightly on the ball. Show me any time you’ve seen Faulk carry the ball like that. And this is Bledsoe we’re talking about, who wound up scoring the first rushing touchdown in his eight-year Patriot career.
If anyone needs to smack Faulk even harder, look no further than Lewis. On the same drive that Langham committed his costly penalty, the Jets drove on to the Patriot 22. It was fourth and two, and John Hall lined up for a field goal. But then, Hall slipped away, and former Patriot punter Tom Tupa lined up at quarterback. Lewis took a perfect toss from Tupa, ran around right end, made Chris Slade miss, and gained three yards for a first down. With both hands on the football. The Jets would score four plays later. Yo, Kevin, this is a linebacker we’re talking about.
Faulk should be totally ashamed of himself. The fumble did the Patriots in. The Jets seized the momentum and the game right from the get-go. Any chance of a big Patriot win evaporated on the third play of the game.
And it made every Patriot fan who thought this would actually be an easy Patriot win look incredibly foolish today. What was supposed to be a possible stepping stone on their way to a 4-4 record at the bye now looks like a huge step backwards. In fact, if past form holds, the Patriots have probably just tumbled down a black hole, from which there will be no recovery until 2001 rolls around.
In each of the past three years, the Patriots have gone into a tailspin following a Jet loss. A 24-19 loss at the Meadowlands in 1997 began a run of four losses in five games, but the Patriots recovered to win the division. In 1998, they lost a 24-14 Monday night game at home, which again began a run of four losses in five games. And last year, another loss at home to the Jets, also on Monday night, began a run of six losses in seven games.
Translation: Suck it up, Patriot Nation, and prepare yourselves.
Actually, this history junk matters not right now. The most galling thing about today’s game is that everyone thought the Patriots would win. Not just win, win easy.
But it was the Jets that won easy.
All the while watching the team with our former great running back and our former coach, with draft picks that have outperformed the last few Patriot drafts by a mile, and who exploits a familiar opponent better than the current Patriot coaches do, you the Patriot fan simply have to sit there and gnash your teeth. What else can you do?
Watching Martin punish the Patriots simply hurts. Watching Groh outcoach Belichick and Charlie Weis stinks. Watching their defensive front seven, most of whom were acquired through the draft, blow us off the field is sickening.
Once again, Patriot Nation has to just forget about the Jets and this game, and take solace that we won’t have to worry about Joisey until next year. That at least is a comfort.
And things have changed little since 1996. Martin and Parcells to Joisey, Belichick to Foxborough. It’s still the Jets in a slamdunk. That may change someday, but it hasn’t changed yet. Not by a long shot.
Just don’t ever come at me with this “Pats favored to beat the Jets” malarkey ever again. Until it actually happens on the field to prove otherwise, the Jets own the Patriots, both mentally and physically.
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