The stages was set. A nor easter in town. And so were the Jets. Yes. It was SpyGate Bowl. It was a rematch of arch Enemies going in two different directions but this time, the Jets came to play. Unfortunately, the results were still the same as the Jets suffered their 11th loss of the season (20 to 10) while New England now stands at a perfect 14-0. Yes...it's enough to make me puke green knowing that they are undefeated and we had our chances to beat them yesterday and ruin their perfect season.
The game started out nice. We played some nice defense and forced a punt so how can you complain. But, then Kellen Clemens made a terrible mistake as he was under pressure and threw it to the Pats for a touchdown to put us in an early hole. I was pissed on that play as the ball was released and Clemens was pounded into the ground by a 300+ lb Richard Semour. Hey zebras...where's the roughing penalty??? Still...Kellen made a really bad throw and then was out of the game with injured ribs. So, the jury is still out if he is going to be our starting QB next year.
What didn't help is that Laveraneus only played in one play in the entire game as he suffered what they call a "freak accident" to his ankle at the team hotel. Great...our best receiver was out.
Now, once Kellen was out of the game, I hated was Mangini was doing giving Brad Smith so many plays in a row behind center. Brad Smith is a trick play guy and when he was in for multiple plays, you saw the things that can happen. First there was a toss to the halfback Washington that was fumbled. Then, there was a play that we needed 2 yards for a first down and Smith throws a terrible pass to a wide open Chris Baker. Hey Eric Mangini...put Pennington in to make those short throws and run the offense and use Smith to change things up. I didn't understand what Mangini was doing. Personally, they should have attempted the field goal but if you are going to go for it, let Chad make the throw instead of Smith.
Chad was a bit rusty but played good despite the weather conditions, not playing since end October, not getting the reps during the week's practice, and in horrific weather conditions. Chad finished 25 for 38 for 186 yards. One of the big problems all game was 3rd down conversions. Some of the play calling on 3rd down made me scratch my scalp and I don't have dandruff. We were 3 for 14 on third down for the game. That's pathetic. Worse is the way we played in the red zone. We were there 4 times and wound up with only 3 points. The Chris Baker fumble while in the red zone didn't help much either.
Scoring for both teams didn't come easy. Kellen gave them a TD in the start of the game with an interception and we gave them another touchdown as they blocked a punt. So, that was 14 points for them all wrapped up for Christmas. They gave us 7 points from a blocked punt. So, the net difference is 7 points in their favor which would have made the game even closer than it was. But, we didn't deserve to win as there were too many mistakes. And we need a receiver to come in that can catch. Justin McCareins continued his dropping ways with two bad drops with the 2nd one being in the endzone that he bobbled that would have given us 7 points to cut the deficit to 3 with time remaining to get the ball back. And after not scoring a touchdown, we wind up missing a field goal. OUCH.
As for the defense, they played great. If you take away the 14 gift points, the defense held the high scoring Patriots to just 6 points. How can you complain when we held Brady, having a year for the ages to 14 for 27, 140 yards, and an interception. Plus, it was the first time all season that Brady didn't throw a touchdown pass. And, it was the first time in 17 games that the Patriots didn't score at least 24 points. So, you gotta take your hats off to the defense as this unit is improving and I look for them to be even better next year.
Well...there are only 2 more games left in this miserable season before we start looking forward to an interesting off season and the draft. I'll go more into this once the season is officially complete. As for the Patriots, I'm not rooting for them to go to the Super Bowl and then get upset by the Packers ! GO FAVRE !
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