It wasn\u2019t pretty and it was played in bad weather on a slippery field, but a win is a win, and I will take it.<\/p>\n
Here are few quick observations:<\/p>\n
1) Christian Gonzalez shut down Garrett Wilson.\u00a0 Wilson was shown to be very frustrated and lobbying to get the ball thrown his way.\u00a0 He did have 5 catches for 58 yards and a long of 29, but that was mostly against a zone.\u00a0 When Gonzalez was one-on-one, he shut him down.\u00a0 I am looking forward to seeing what his rating is this week.\u00a0 He was 3rd<\/sup> in the league after two weeks from PFF.<\/p>\n 2) Anfernee Jennings made an impact early. He had a big tackle for loss.\u00a0 Jennings was also in on a sack that was credited to Barmore.\u00a0 Matt Judon was credited with two sacks including the one for a safety.<\/p>\n 3) Who is Pharoah Brown and did anyone have him scoring the 1st<\/sup> TD of the game?\u00a0 Brilliant play call by O\u2019Brien and it was off play-action.\u00a0 Brown, signed to the Practice Squad after the final cuts were made, had played for Bill O\u2019Brien while they were in Houston in 2020.\u00a0 That was the last time the 6\u20196\u201d, 258 lbs. TE had scored a TD.\u00a0 The Patriots also used him at Fullback.\u00a0 They like his physicality.<\/p>\n 4) The Patriots established a running game which in turn allowed them to do play-action.\u00a0 They had 159 yards rushing on 40 carries, nearly 4 yards per carry.\u00a0 That was the best I have seen Ezekiel Elliott in a while.\u00a0 His 16 carries and 80 yards topped all ball carriers.<\/p>\n 5) The Patriots Defense stood tall limiting the Jets to under 200 yards of total offense.\u00a0 They held Zach Wilson to 157 yards passing, and the Jets only had 38 yards rushing on 22 carries. Wilson was under constant pressure.\u00a0 A bad call by the officials was the only reason the Jets were able to get a TD.<\/p>\n 6) The Officials were inconsistent all day.\u00a0 Alijah Vera-Tucker left early into his pass set on every pass play and was called just once.\u00a0 Trent Brown does it once and he gets called.\u00a0 Demario Douglas going long for a pass was clearly interfered with before the ball arrived, and there was no call, yet Myles Bryant gets called for a ticky-tac PI where Randall Cobb took a soccer dive and got the call.<\/p>\n 7) I did have one complaint about O\u2019Brien\u2019s play calling. He did not allow Mac Jones to throw on 1st<\/sup> down.\u00a0 Completion percentage goes way up when you pass on 1st<\/sup> down.<\/p>\n 8) Jones played a very mediocre game.\u00a0 He was 15 of 29 for 201 yards and a TD, with no Interceptions.\u00a0 That is barely over 50% completion percentage.\u00a0 Jones looked off and he and his WR\u2019s were not on the same page.<\/p>\n 9) The Offensive line played their best game of the year.\u00a0 They prevented the highly rated Defensive Line of the Jets from getting any sacks.\u00a0 Their run blocking was very good, especially on those delayed handoffs.\u00a0 Antonio Mafi came in for Cole Strange and he was an improvement over Strange.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if he was hurt again, or the original injury flared up again, or if he was just benched for being ineffective.\u00a0 Vederian Lowe started at RT over Calvin Anderson and played well again after a strong showing last week against Bradley Chubb. \u00a0Last week was his 1st<\/sup> start in the NFL and this was his 3rd<\/sup> game he played on the line.\u00a0 Lowe is practically a rookie.\u00a0 He was a 2022 6th round (#184) draft pick of Minnesota.<\/p>\n 10) The Patriots had another game with a rash of penalties, including back-to-back false starts.\u00a0 They were called 6 times for 43 yards. \u00a0Meanwhile the Jets were only called for 3 for 15 yards.<\/p>\n 11) What happened with the usually reliable longsnapper Joe Cardona?\u00a0 He had two high snaps that led to two missed Field Goal by Chad Ryland.\u00a0 Holder Bryce Baringer made a good grab of the 1st<\/sup> high snap and got the ball down in time for Ryland to kick, but he pushed it off to the right.\u00a0 This may also have been a case of the rookie not knowing the swirling winds of Met Life stadium.<\/p>\n Grier Poached Off Cincinnati\u2019s Practice Squad<\/strong><\/p>\n Will Grier was signed off the Bengals Practice Squad and will serve as the third\/emergency QB. \u00a0I was completely unaware of Grier\u2019s prowess in college.\u00a0 He finished his career with 8, 556 yards passing and a career 65.7 completion percentage.\u00a0 He threw and amazing number of TD passes (81) in his three years at Florida and West Virginia.\u00a0 <\/p>\n He did have a one-year suspension by the NCAA for taking a banned substance.\u00a0 He claimed it was bought over the counter and that he never checked with trainers to determine if it was a banned substance.\u00a0 \u00a0Grier stands 6\u20193\u201d 217 lbs. and ran a 4.84 40 at the combine.\u00a0 His 3-cone drill was 7.09 which indicated quick feet.\u00a0 He was drafted by Carolina in 2019 as a 3rd<\/sup> rd. selection (#100).\u00a0 In his 4-year Pro career, he has started twice, and both were losses by Carolina. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Grier was informed by Dallas that he was going to be waived at the final cutdown when Dallas traded for Trey Lance.\u00a0 However, Dallas allowed him to play the entire final pre-season game.\u00a0 All he did was throw for 305 yards, 2 passing TDs and 2 rushing TDs.\u00a0 Cincinnati signed him to their Practice Squad and the Patriots poached him off their PS.\u00a0 He must remain on the Patriots 53-man active roster for at least three weeks.\u00a0 He was the Third\/ Emergency QB today vs. the Jets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It wasn\u2019t pretty and it was played in bad weather on a slippery field, but a win is a win, and I will take it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":48089,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-patriots-news"],"yoast_head":"\n