Immediate Reactions Following Patriots Loss to the Jets
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For the second time in as many meetings, the Patriots mustered just three points against the New York Jets on Thursday night at MetLife Stadium.
Last January, the Patriots closed out the 2023 season with a 17-3 defeat at Gillette Stadium in a game where the offense could do very little against their AFC East rivals, and Thursday night followed a similar theme. This result ended in a 24-3 loss, dropping New England to 1-2 on the season.
Some quick thoughts coming off of this one:
1) Brutal night for the defense: For a unit that has been the one bright spot for this team, they collectively didn’t play well at all on Thursday night.
They were extremely inconsistent, with their inability to tackle being a surprising problem that, considering how well they tackled in the opener, has been somewhat shocking and is becoming a disappointing theme.
They finished the night with 14 missed tackles, allowing the Jets to pick up some big yards, and it led to what ended up being a productive evening for New York’s offense. It’s an area that head coach Jerod Mayo acknowledged is a big issue, and it’s one they absolutely have to get corrected.
“Yeah, very uncharacteristic,” said Mayo after the game on their inability to tackle. “That’s one of the things I’m very disappointed in as a defensive-minded coach, especially the second level. We struggled all day as far as tackling. Once again, even when we hit them in the backfield, just the lack of fundamentals, the lack of discipline, and the lack of just execution definitely continued to show up. But that was very uncharacteristic for us. But once again, you only get one opportunity to go out there and perform.”
There were moments where they shot themselves in the foot and made some uncharacteristically foolish penalties. A big one led to New York’s first points.
After the Jets got near midfield early in the second quarter, linebacker Jahlani Tavai stopped Breece Hall for no gain, but then proceeded to pick him up and slam him down to the turf. That immediately drew a penalty, and it also negated what had been a nice tackle for no gain. Instead, the 15 yards off the penalty gave the Jets the football at New England’s 31.
Four plays later, the Jets were in the end zone, with Alex Austin missing the tackle on Allen Lazard after he reached for and grabbed the receiver’s t-shirt. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop him and as it tore away, Lazard kept going and ended up in the end zone to give them a 7-0 lead.
Overall, the secondary struggled, with Christian Gonzalez among players who missed tackles Thursday night, which has been an issue at times for him so far this season.
The second-year player also made a gutsy gamble that didn’t pay off in the third quarter, which came on the touchdown play to Garrett Wilson. On the play, Gonzalez jumped the throw, but Aaron Rodgers put the ball where only Wilson could grab it, with the ball arriving just out of the defensive back’s reach.
Wilson took it in, and the Jets ended up with a touchdown to go up 21-3 with 6:18 remaining in the third quarter.
Granted, the Patriots’ offense didn’t do them any favors. They left them out on the field for over forty minutes, leaving them clearly gassed as the game went on.
Against a player like Rodgers, he’s too good to keep putting the ball back in his hands. As a result, it ended up being a long night for Jerod Mayo’s football team.
2) Rodgers was on his game: Meanwhile, Aaron Rodgers could seemingly do little wrong. He finished the night 27-of-35 for 281 yards and two touchdowns, completing passes to eight different receivers.
He was also fairly nimble in this game, with the veteran quarterback not showing any ill-effects from his Achilles injury. One of the biggest issues Thursday night was the fact that the defense had a tough time containing him in the pocket, allowing him to get outside and create plays on the run.
When that happened, New England’s secondary didn’t get guys covered up and Rodgers picked them apart and kept the chains moving.
“Yeah, he was getting the ball out fast,” said Mayo. “I would say one of the more disappointing things that we talked about, ad nauseam, was to keep him in the pocket. I felt like we, at too many times, let him out of the pocket, and this is a guy who can make all of the throws.”
They definitely struggled to get off the field. The Jets converted an astounding 10-of-15 (66.7%) on third down, with the defense often unable to come up with a stop.
In the end, Mayo knows that the way they played wasn’t good enough, and he’s got some work to do.
“The first thing, I got to look at myself in the mirror and make sure that I did everything I could to get the guys ready to go,” said Mayo. “Based on the score today, I need to do more. But going back to what I said earlier, just got to hit the reset button, it’s NFL football, and we have to get better.”
3) Tough night for Jacoby Brissett: The veteran finished 12-of-18 for just 98 yards, which wasn’t much better than the 12-of-30 for 88 yards that Bailey Zappe had in the finale last season.
The one positive was that, unlike Zappe, Brissett didn’t throw two interceptions, but he also wasn’t able to get much going and spent most of the first half not getting much production from the passing game.
It was fairly ugly. They went three-and-out on their first possession, and then a missed throw by Brissett to a wide-open Austin Hooper after they had gotten to midfield ended up putting them in a 3rd-and-7, which was also costly.
Brissett suffered an 8-yard sack on the ensuing play, which forced them to punt away the football.
The lone bright spot in the first half was the fact they managed to put together an 8 play, 50 yard drive that was highlighted by a 34-yard pass interference penalty on the Jets that got them down to New York’s 25 yard line.
That play ultimately led to a 44-yard field goal, which gave the Patriots their only points of the game.
But the Jets defense was relentless, and New England couldn’t do anything to counter it. In fact, they nearly headed into halftime with -1 net yards passing, which essentially tells you how bad things were for Brissett throwing the football.
A 12-yard pass to Demario Douglas just before a Hail Mary attempt to close out the half flipped that around and saw them finish with 11 net yards passing, compared to 164 for the Jets.
Brissett finished the first half 7-of-10 (70%) for just 36 yards and just two offensive first downs. However, he was sacked three times and New York’s defense finished the night with a total of 15 QB hits, which included several on Drake Maye, who entered the game in the closing minutes.
In the end, given their struggles up front and the fact Brissett consistently couldn’t get enough time to get the ball down the field, there just obviously wasn’t enough production in what ended up being a 21-point loss.
“The quarterback touches the ball every play. We have to do better up front,” said Mayo when asked about how concerned he is about his veteran quarterback. “We have to, whether it’s through scheme or whatever, we got to reevaluate. The good thing is, it’s Thursday, so it’s a mini-by-week where we, as coaches, can also reset and look at things that we could do better.”
4) Rhamondre Stevenson’s fumble issues finally bit him: Stevenson’s been living dangerously in recent weeks and Thursday night saw him finally commit a turnover.
Stevenson lost the football late in this one, which came early in the fourth quarter. He had the ball ripped out on a run up the middle, with Chuck Clark getting his hands on the football and taking it away.
The running back appeared to suffer a hand injury earlier in the contest following what appeared to be a 19 yard run on a tremendous effort, with Stevenson breaking away from tackles and dragging his man out to their 40. However, he was flagged for a fask mask penalty, which the replay showed happened when Stevenson’s pinkie got caught in the defender’s facemask as he was stiff-arming him.
Instead of a big gain, Stevenson was flagged for the 15 yard penalty, which negated the run.
Still, the turnover happened on New England’s end of the field, and it led to a 28-yard field goal by the Jets that put them up 24-3. It’s his third fumble in as many weeks, and unfortunately, this time around, he didn’t end up with it.
The question now is the severity of his hand injury, which will be something to keep an eye on heading into next week.
It wasn’t a good night for linebacker Jahlani Tavai. He missed several tackles and it was one of the more disappointing performances we’ve seen from him in a while. And it came with Ja’Whaun Bentley out of the lineup, which definitely leaves some tough shoes to fill. Between the untimely penalty and over-running his assignments on defense, Tavai was among several guys who had a difficult night. “Bentley is a huge piece of the defense, communication, tackling, physicality, all of those things,” said Mayo. “Look, I have faith in those other guys. I have faith in Raekwon [McMillan]. I have faith in Jahlani [Tavai] and the rest of those guys to get better. It’s a learning experience. Once again, we have to learn from this loss and get better. Bentley is not coming back anytime soon, and that’s the message.” … Despite his penalties, rookie Caedan Wallace ended up being somewhat of a pleasant surprise at left tackle Thursday night. He apparently suffered an injury late in this one, but if he’s OK, his overall play in pass protection was better than expected, which shows that he’s made some progress. That in and of itself is a little encouraging. … Mike Onwenu didn’t have a great game at right tackle. It feels like he’s struggling there so far, but given their injuries, the Patriots have to hope that he can settle in at some point. They’re too thin right now for him to move back inside, so it’s not like they have a lot of options. … Stevenson’s hand situation will bear watching given the drop off between he and Antonio Gibson. Gibson has done a decent job, but he’s no where as explosive or as powerful as Stevenson is. … Drake Maye took some shots during his brief appearance including two sacks, one of which saw him get slammed to the turf fairly hard. However, he’s a big guy, and he immediately got up and showed no ill effects and looked fired up and ready for the next play. That was at least encouraging to see. Whether he could have fared better than Brissette is tough to say, and Mayo did say that they’ll review the tape and talk about things ahead of next week. “I don’t know. Look, we talk about every single week you’re competing for a job,” he said. “We’ll get together as a coaching staff and see where it goes.” … Bryce Baringer was unreal Thursday night. He had five punts for 245 yards and dropped three inside the twenty, flipping the field several times and giving New England’s defense at least a chance in this one. Had he not done that, it’s possible the score might have been even more lopsided. While the punter isn’t the position people enjoy hearing about, he’s been tremendous so far this season, and he was solid again in this one.
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