Pats really needed a win, and they took it
Oct. 25—FOXBOROUGH — There are three options in breaking down what really happened at Gillette Stadium early Sunday afternoon, a 54-13 win by your New England Patriots:
a) "Same old Jets."
b) Beginning of something "potentially" special.
c) Somewhere in between.
A week removed from their third end-of-game defensive breakdown versus Dallas, and two weeks removed from the ugliest, undeserving win against the lowly Texans, the Patriots looked ... gulp! ... like a playoff team.
The easy, go-to answer is the opponent. The New York Jets, now 1-5, are and were horrible.
They came here with one-arm tied behind their backs because the offense — last in the NFL in points per game at 13.6, 30th in rushing yards (74.0), 29th in passing yards (267.0) — is not good and led by a rookie quarterback, Zach Wilson, who is not ready to win even semi-consistently.
But the Patriots' defense has been no bargain, particularly during crunch time.
As for the Jets' defense, prevailing wisdom — Las Vegas bookmakers only had the Pats favored by a touchdown — had was this New York group would cause some problems against a conservative offense, like it did for much of first three quarters in Week 2 in East Rutherford, N.J.
The game was over less than eight minutes into the game as Patriots' offense and defense dominated their way to a 14-0 lead.
The Patriots razzle-dazzled their way to a touchdown on their first drive — a backwards pass to Kendrick Bourne, in motion — who threw it to a wide open Nelson Agholor for a 25-yard touchdown hookup.
Sort of akin to Jets' defense-playing-checkers and Patriots' offense playing chess.
Then a quick three-and-out, a sweet 17-yard punt return by Gunner Olszewski and Damien Harris did his thing, four rushes for 51 yards, including a 1-yard TD dive.
It was unlike anything we'd seen before with this 2021 group.
Though it is something we've seen — a start like that — a few dozen times in the last two decades.
The best part, though, was it didn't stop — the blood-letting.
The biggest difference was this Patriots team was desperate for a complete annihilation-like win like this, after three debilitating losses, all of which rookie quarterback Mac Jones appeared to have done enough to win.
The Patriots literally did everything well on Sunday.
Jones threw for his first 300-yard game.
The Patriots rushed for 148 yards with Harris getting his third 100-yard game of 2021 on only 14 carries.
They won the turnover battle 3-0 with two sensational interceptions by J.C. Jackson (sidelines) and Kyle Dugger (low throw).
On special teams they had two nice returns by Olszewski and another 50-yard field goal by Nick Folk.
There were accolades for a lot of Patriots, but the prevailing thought was about need.
The Patriots desperately needed a day like this one, even if it was against the Jets.
"It was a game we needed to show what we are capable of," said Bourne, who not only caught his first Jones bomb for 46 yards to the Jets' 1 but also threw his touchdown pass on the first drive.
"We just needed to win at home," said the Patriots top defensive player, Matt Judon.
The talk around Foxborough this week was the fact that the Patriots were not really a 2-4 team, as the standings showed.
A few veterans said this Patriots team is very close to turning this disaster-in-the-making into a success.
Until this game with the Jets, we hadn't seen it.
But what we saw looked impressive, including the rookie quarterback, who continues to impress.
"I think we got a little flavor of — if we do everything right throughout the week and practice well, do our job in the game, it kind of translates," said Jones. "We finally kind of saw a little bit of a result that was good, and we've just got to stick to the formula."
Was it the Jets or was it a sign of things to come? As noted, it is probably somewhere in the middle.
I guess we'll find out in Los Angeles against the Charges next Sunday.
You can email Bill Burt at bburt@eagletribune.com.
