Jets desperately need to beat Patriots again to rekindle their season
Aaron Rodgers of the Jets reacts in the fourth quarter against the New England Patriots at MetLife Stadium on Thursday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
The Jets walked out of MetLife Stadium on Sept. 19 feeling pretty good about themselves after smacking the Patriots around to the tune of a 24-3 win. There was talk about how they would handle their newfound prosperity and about how crisp and spry their 40-year-old quarterback looked, and a belief that things were only going to get better.
They haven’t won a game since.
That night of heady revelry feels like an eternity ago rather than the little over a month that has elapsed since then. So much has happened. So much hasn’t.
“Yeah, it’s been a second,” said Jeff Ulbrich, who was the defensive coordinator for that Week 3 contest and now is the still-winless interim coach.
The good news for the Jets is that they are back to playing the Patriots, this time in Foxborough on Sunday, and they should win. They’d better win. If they don’t, we may have to start researching if any NFL team has ever fired two coaches in the same season and replaced the interim with an interim interim.
New England is playing some of the worst football in the league, their coach is calling the run defense “soft,” and not even rookie quarterback Drake Maye, the third overall pick in April’s draft, has been able to make a case for optimism in a fan base spoiled by prosperity.
The real danger this week doesn’t lie in the opponent, therefore, but from the relapse in overconfidence that could accompany another win against them.
As much relief as will come from this inevitable victory — and those are two words that probably should never be used in conjunction with the Jets — this team’s ills cannot be solved in one afternoon. They run too deep, are too plentiful and are too prone to flaring up with just the slightest nudge for them to be erased with a single trip to Foxborough.
Not even the rivalry, once the obsession of both sides, has importance here. These teams used to slander each other leading up to game day; this week they spent more time ragging on themselves for being “soft,” as Jerod Mayo called his guys, or “flat,” as many Jets described their own effort last week.
“You have to start somewhere and this is who our next opponent is, so we have to go out and do what we have to do,” Jets receiver Garrett Wilson said. “If we want to get on the streak we want to get on, if we’re going to do it, it starts this weekend. We have the Patriots and we have to handle our business.”
To that end, Ulbrich called this “one of the better weeks that I’ve had around here from a preparation standpoint.” He said the energy and focus were “excellent” and believes his team is in a good place both physically and mentally.
“We’re ready to play this Sunday,” he said.
He wants to recapture the feeling that this squad last experienced the last time they played the Patriots.
“I think this team is capable of doing so much, and obviously we’ve got to demonstrate it, we’ve got to show that, and this is the week we’ve got to start,” he said. “Yeah, we played well that game, but we’re capable of that every week. I’m excited about this opportunity for the guys.”
The players are buying it, too. There definitely is a lightness among them — not to mention some purposefully esoteric vocabulary — that belies their 2-5 record.
“Thankfully, we’re not to the denouement of this season,” Aaron Rodgers said. “There’s still a lot of time left. I think it’s important that we all just stay as sanguine as possible.”
Yes, Aaron, Gang Green definitely is sanguine. They tried the urgency card last week and it didn’t work, so this time they are aiming for fun, joy and calm.
Too much of that sunniness, though, will not be a good thing. Certainly not on the trip home.
For many years, these clashes against the Patriots always seemed like measuring-stick games for the Jets. It was a chance to see how they stacked up against the best team in the division and frequently the league.
Mostly they came up short. So the Jets felt great when they finally beat the Patriots in the regular-season finale in Foxborough in January, ruining what turned out to be Bill Belichick’s final game as coach of New England. And it was thrilling when the Jets topped the Patriots in September to assert their burgeoning dominance.
This time? There is nothing to measure. The best thing the Jets can do is go into Gillette Stadium, get the win and get out. No strutting, no celebrating, no spiking. No believing that they somehow are “back” or “successful.”
Give Ulbrich the game ball for his first victory and start getting ready for the Texans on Thursday night.
This time beat the Patriots and make sure you build on it rather than rest on it.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
