First Place !

It was a huge battle for first place on Sunday night with the Jets playing their nemesis, the Miami Dolphins. It was time for revenge as the Jets hadn’t been swept by the fish since back in 2003.

If you take away the Monday Night Miracle and the 51-45 game, this rivalry has had a ton of heartbreak for the Jets from the Mud Bowl loss to the fake spike and numerous Duper / Clayton touchdowns in between.

But, this is a new era. This was the first game where once hated Dolphin, Jason Taylor, was on our side.

I was a little nervous as Revis, Jenkins, and Pace were out with injuries. Jason Taylor and Nick Mangold were a bit banged up but playing. And Braylon Edwards was suspended for the first quarter as punishment from the Jets for his DWI. So, that’s a lot of talent off the field or not at 100%.

The offense looked in sync. And what a great way to start the game with an 11 play, 6 minute drive ending in a touchdown. Sanchez looked great making some clutch throws and then hit Keller, his go to guy, for a 24 yard score. Doesn’t look like the Jets needed Braylon “DWI” Edwards on that first drive.

Our second touchdown was just as sweet. Sanchez hit Keller for a long gain. The drive was then helped out with a personal foul on 3rd and 20 to give the Jets a first down which was followed by a 20 yard run by LT. Did San Diego actually say this guy lost a step? Then, Sanchez hits Keller again for another TD!

The second quarter was a disaster as the Jets let the stinkin’ fish right back in the game with poor defense and a lack of any offense combined with some penalties. The Dolphins were picking apart our defense. We even had great field position on one of our drives with a great kickoff return for 54 yards by Brad Smith and the drive just stalled. At the end of the quarter, we had an opportunity for a long field goal and we had our millionth false start to make a long field goal attempt even longer and the ball was tipped at the line. Still, we were going into the locker room with a 14-10 lead.

After the defense once again looked disgusting, like a puddle of vomit giving the Dolphins another touchdown for a 17-14 lead, Sanchez comes out and hits Braylon Edwards for a 67 yard touchdown to regain the lead, 21-17. I’m not sure Braylon deserves a touchdown based on what he did but, I’m a frustrated Jets fan so I’ll gladly take the score!

The Jets D started the third quarter stinking another egg letting the Dolphins walk right down the field but luckily only gave up a field goal.

After some back and fourth, Eric Smith blocks a punk and we are sitting pretty on the 10 yard line until Edwards gets called for a trip and Slausen gets called for a hold. After a terrible call in the Wildcat that got Brad Smith a first down, we were sitting pretty again. However, another Slausen hold on a Sanchez TD run stalled the drive and gave us only three points. How many penalties are we gonna have? Don’t you wish we resigned Faneca as this Slausen experiment isn’t working. And, wouldn’t it be nice if we threw more than once at the endzone when we were so close? Why did we get so conservative again? The Jets were up 4 points but I was quite disgusted with the series of downs when you start with the ball on the 10 yard line.

Before I could blink, the Dolphins booted a 50 yard field goal. The Jets were up just one. I had a bad feeling on how this was going to play out based on how poorly the defense was playing this evening.

The Jets didn’t feel my pessimistic attitude. They got the ball with 6+ minutes to go and drove right down the field while mixing up the run and the pass and eating up valuable time on the clock. The drive ends with a LT one yard touchdown score to put the Jets up by 8.

Now it was up to the defense to seal the victory. The defense had it’s moments in the game with Ellis having one sack and Jason Taylor with a sack and a pressure. They were great in the first quarter giving up just 16 total yards. But, now it was under two minutes with the game and first place in the AFC East on the line. It didn’t look like the defense was up for the task letting the Dolphins walk all the way down the field. However, the Jets stopped them on four straight plays ending with a Drew Coleman interception in the endzone to seal the game.

Can you say FIRST PLACE !!!