Patriots week

For the New York Jets this is a twice yearly event. Minimum. Patriots week.  

               

                Let the Todd Bowles regime downplay the significance because the Jets needed a win to stay alive in the playoff hunt. Let him soft-pedal that the loss to New England earlier this season when the Jets actually led the-then unbeaten Patriots in Foxboro only to have the incomparable Tom Brady and company surge back to win.

                Listen to the postgame rhetoric and disabuse yourself of the notion that this wasn’t a bigger win than just for the right to play one more week for that playoff spot. Then think of the players who have been here longer—Darrelle Revis, Antonio Cromartie returned this year to get another shot at the Pats. David Harris and his defensive mates sure wanted redemption for all the losses—whether it was this October or the Mark Sanchez butt fumble disaster. Think this over time victory courtesy of a botched coin toss election by New England giving New York the ball is tarnished? Tainted? An undeserved holiday gift?

                No, this was a statement game for the Jets. Sure New England didn’t have all of its offensive firepower and the offensive line was ravaged by injury. The fact that All-Pro DB Devin Mc Courty of Rutgers didn’t play hurt the Patriots too. That didn’t stop Brady and the tight end behemoth Rob Gronkowski to bring New England to a tie late in regulation time. And one Patriots touchdown was the direct result of a fumble by Fitzpatrick when his arm was cocked and ready to pass.

As good as the defense was in harassing Brady behind the hodgepodge line and all but throttling the weak New England running game led by a retread, Stephen Jackson, the 18^th all time rusher in NFL history, the game was not won by defense alone.

This Jets team has a pretty good offense. Ryan Fitzpatrick, a so-called journeyman quarterback who started the season only because the incumbent, Geno Smith was the recipient of a broken jaw for ragging another player over a debt, has been a revelation.  Bolstered by the number one tandem in the NFL, wide outs Brandon Marshall and Eric Decker, and a strong running game and an equally solid offensive line, Harvard-educated Fitzpatrick has teamed with offensive coordinator Chan Gailey to make the Jets a formidable team which can be hard to defend. They have made the right calls at the right times, been opportunistic and Fitzpatrick has made mostly good calls to run or target receivers without too many dire consequences.

The fact that the Jets went down the field in overtime without hesitation and capitalized on their one chance to score without giving the ball back to Brady was no fluke. This has been building during the course of the year. Fitzpatrick is on board with Gailey. Marshall and Decker are in sync with Fitzpatrick.  When Fitzpatrick and Decker connected for the winning score on the lone drive of overtime, it was this New York Jets team’s destiny.

What we have seen is the growth of a team. The current surge against Miami, the Giants, Tennessee, Dallas and now New England is the sign of a team peaking at the right time.  Seasoned pros with some talented rookies along with a number of players playing at an All Star level makes this kind of win happen.

So there will be a celebration of a well-deserved win over an arch-rival who has dominated the Jets of late. That is the nature of Patriots week. Then the focus will return to the task at hand—winning that Wild-Card spot in the 2015 Playoffs.

Wouldn’t it be sweet if they won next week in Buffalo, avenging an earlier loss on national TV to the Buffalo Bills led by ex-coach Rex Ryan, he of the bluster against the best coach in the game—New England’s Bill Belichik—who his Jets teams could never overcome?

It would be safe to get the answer to that question next Sunday. Especially if the Jets win again.

After all, that is Buffalo week—an occurrence which takes place twice a year. Minimum.