Patriots show signs of life at the expense of dysfunctional Jets

Slide on over, Iron Bowl. Jets-Patriots II in 2024 will be remembered as The Irony Bowl.

In a game between one team at the bottom of the Pit of Despair and another sliding fast down the misery-soaked sides of it, the weirdness was stacked deep.

On the Patriots side, you had Jacoby Brissett -- benched three weeks ago in large part for non-aggression (which was what the team kind of asked him to do) -- delivering big-time throws in crunch time.

He hit on enough of them to set up a dramatic, in-by-inches, buzzer-beating touchdown for Rhamondre Stevenson. That result was the opposite of the play that essentially sealed Brissett’s fate: Ja’Lynn Polk’s failed, end-of-game toe-tap at the back of the end zone against the Dolphins.

Polk, self-proclaimed owner of the “best hands in the league” despite a cartoonish propensity for drops, did not play Sunday because of injury. But the cavalcade of drops from the rest of the receivers continued in the same “are you s------- me?!?!” fashion.

Chief offender Kayshon Boutte, who bragged last week he hadn’t had a drop all year and shouldn’t have to go to the coaching staff requesting the ball, made up for two stunning drops with the catch of the day to set up the game-winning touchdown.

Most glaringly, the Patriots -- who’d been the “get right” team for the Dolphins, 49ers and Jaguars in recent weeks -- finally bowed up against a Jets team that needed to get right more than any of the others.

Imagine being the Jets. Trying to light a fire in recent weeks by canning the head coach, trading for one of the league’s best receivers and ponying up to end the holdout of pass-rusher Haason Reddick, then seeing their hope-filled season basically ended at the hands of a team that’s in an acknowledged rebuild that was going so poorly the head coach called them soft a week earlier.

The Patriots responded, probably as well as they are physically capable, leaving Jets interim coach Jeff Ulbrich sounding like an emo teen in his postgame presser.  

“This is a moment of darkness, and we understand that the outside world is going to get really loud right now,” he said.

Rodgers picked up the riff at his postgame podium, adding, “I've been in the darkness. You've got to go in there, make peace with it.”

Ugh.

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Nothing is "fixed" for the Patriots. But they did stanch the bleeding a bit. And despite the glaring ineptitude of the receivers to catch … the … football, there are sneaky incremental improvements going on where you can see progress being made.

Last time around, the Jets happened to notice that New England had no shot at picking up blitzers with its inexperienced offensive line. They rolled up seven sacks, battering Brissett all night in a 24-3 win that wasn’t that close. There were two sacks on Sunday. The group of (left to right) Vederian Lowe, Michael Jordan, Ben Brown, Michael Onwenu and Demontrey Jacobs held up against a highly-talented Jets front.

Defensively? You’d want to hold off on popping corks for the performance given the way Garrett Wilson tuned up Marcus Jones to the tune of five catches for 113 yards and some of the big runs for running back Breece Hall. And the Jets were laughable in their lack of cohesion all day.

But with a safety troika of Marte Mapu, Jaylinn Hawkins and Dell Pettus (Kyle Dugger was a no-go with an ankle injury), Rodgers was limited to 17-for-28 for 233 yards. In the first meeting, Rodgers went 15-for-20 for 170 in the first half and took whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted.

So credit should go to embattled defensive coordinator Demarcus Covington for the tweaks and to the players for getting the message Mayo sent and acting on it rather than getting in their feelings over it.

Said defensive lineman Keion White after the game: “Somebody calls you out, as a man you can’t get all sensitive about it… That just is a testament of his coaching and how we are receptive to him… We didn’t get defensive... We took it as a challenge.”

There’s deep irony -- to return to the theme -- in the all-in Jets being 2-6, the same record as the “bridge-year” Patriots.

To lose with to a team with a collection of no-name offensive linemen that their stud-filled defense couldn’t solve. A team that had to go to its backup quarterback after Drake Maye was concussed. A team without four of its most vital defensive players. A team that had its wideouts literally drop almost as many passes as they collectively caught.   

A team that -- before Sunday -- had every opponent on their upcoming schedule looking at a chance to bank a win.

I don’t think anyone’s going to confuse this Patriots win as a sign of great health. They are not out of the woods. But -- for the moment -- the patient has stabilized.