EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Everything you need to know about the Patriots' 24-17 victory in quickie form:
HEADLINES
The Patriots survived: For about the first quarter and a half, the Patriots — coming off a 10-day layoff, mind you — played about as poorly as they have this season in falling behind the Jets, 14-0. The defense had allowed 4 of 5 third-down conversions and two scores. The offense hadn’t produced any points thanks to a Mike Gillislee fumble, and was coming off a three-and-out. And then the Patriots got a questionable pass interference call in the end zone on a pass to Rob Gronkowski to setup a score, Malcolm Butler picked off a pass with 40 seconds left, Tom Brady hit Brandin Cooks on a beautiful 42-yard pass to set up another score before halftime, and the Patriots added another on the first possession of the second half. That’s how you go from a 14-0 deficit to a 21-14 lead in about 10 minutes of game time.
Jets got screwed: The Jets appeared to have a touchdown to cut the Patriots’ lead to three points with a little over 8 minutes remaining on a pass to tight end Austin Sefarian-Jenkins. After it went to review, the officials ruled that Sefarian-Jenkins fumbled twice for a touchback, giving the Patriots the ball. The replay showed that he bobbled the ball, but there was far from indisputable evidence about the fumble and when he fumbled. The play was way over-officiated. At the least, the Jets should have had the ball at the 1-inch line.
https://twitter.com/NFLonFOX/status/919681204772749314
Defense got off to a horrible start, still isn’t good: After 10 days off, the Patriots defense came out and allowed the Jets to convert all four of their third downs on the opening scoring drive, and two scores on their first three drives. This was the Jets, an offense that is borderline pathetic, rolling up 400 yards and allowing 38-year-old journeyman Josh McCown to throw for 354 yards — the sixth time in six games the Patriots have allowed a 300-yard passer this season. Still too many big plays: the Jets had five plays of over 20 yards, including four over 30. Even on the Jets’ final drive, the Patriots allowed a wide open Robby Anderson to catch a 32-yard pass on fourth-and-12 to give the Jets hope of tying the game. Not good enough.
TURNING POINT
After a Tom Brady interception and a four-play punt on back-to-back series seemed to extinguish hope the Patriots would narrow a 14-7 gap before halftime, Malcolm Butler jumped in front of a telegraphed pass for Robby Anderson to give the Patriots the ball at their 37 with 35 seconds remaining. Plenty of time. Brady went up top to Brandin Cooks for 42 yards to the Jets’ 2, Rob Gronkowski caught a 2-yard score two plays later, and then the Patriots scored again after halftime when Gronkowski caught a 33-yard pass to make it 21-14 Patriots. At that point, the Jets were largely deflated and defeated.
SECOND GUESS
The referees for taking a touchdown away from the Jets: On a ruling that was anything but clear and obvious to overturn a call on the field.
“The final (replay) shot that we saw was from the end zone, that showed the New York Jets' runner -- we'll call him a runner at that point -- with the football starting to go toward the ground,” said referee Tony Corrente. “He lost the ball. It came out of his control as he was almost to the ground. Now, he re-grasps the ball -- and by rule, now he has to complete the process of a recovery, which means he has to survive the ground again. So in recovering it, he recovered, hit the knee, started to roll, and the ball came out a second time. So the ball started to move in his hands this way. He's now out of bounds in the end zone, which now created a touchback. So he didn't survive the recovery and didn't survive the ground during the recovery, is what happened here."