AFC East: Jets Rounding Into Form
Sports Network | November 18, 2008
(Sports Network) - No member of the New York Jets ever said it, but Thursday night's contest at the New England Patriots was a veritable referendum on the team's offseason moves.
If a Jets team that had brought in Brett Favre to lead the passing game, found him a blossoming over-the-middle tight end talent in Dustin Keller, signed two established offensive line talents in Alan Faneca and Damien Woody, traded for nose tackle Kris Jenkins to control the opposing run and a legitimate outside pass rusher in Calvin Pace still couldn't beat the now-depleted New England Patriots and seize first place in the AFC East, then lots of NFL observers would have taken to calling those moves pointless.
That would have been overstating things, of course, just as calling the Jets the new kings of the AFC East hill is an exaggeration, even in the wake of their 34-31 overtime triumph at New England.
The Jets still would have been part of the playoff picture even if the Patriots had completed their comeback from a 24-6 deficit by beating Gang Green, just as Eric Mangini's squad still has a great deal of work to do to fend off New England (6-4) and Miami (6-4) over the final six weeks of the season.
But, let there be no question that the Jets' win over the hated Patriots was a psychological mountain successfully scaled, and at least for the moment, no one will be saying New York shopped unwisely during the late winter and early spring of 2008.
Favre has taken some heat this season for his mistakes and an occasional lack of big plays, but neither problem was on display against the Patriots.
No. 4 completed 26-of-33 passes for 258 yards, two touchdowns, and no interceptions in the loss, coolly leading the Jets down the field in the overtime session to get Jay Feely in position for the game-winning 34-yard field goal.
Keller, the rookie out of Purdue who looks to be the capable pass-catching tight end the team has long lacked, was Favre's favorite target with eight grabs for 87 yards on the night.
Faneca and Woody were part of a group that allowed the Jets to churn out 140 ground yards, including 104 on 30 carries with a touchdown for Thomas Jones.
Defensively, the Pro Bowl-worthy Jenkins had three tackles, a sack, and helped limit New England's running backs to 63 yards on 17 carries (3.7 per rush), and Pace ranked second on the team with seven tackles on the night.
Yes, the secondary still has some work to do after allowing Matt Cassel to throw for a career-high 400 yards, and the club must learn to keep its foot on the gas when holding a big lead, but let's remember that this team was 2-8 at this point last year, and there are strides still to be made.
Thursday's win was more evidence that the strides have been gallops, as opposed to baby steps.
"What has pleased me and what I'm continuing to look for is complementary football, and all three phases being able to contribute to the success that week," said Mangini on Monday. "(In) each phase understanding what they have to get done in the game in order to win the game and how they have to play it in order to help the other phases be successful - complete football, not having drop-offs late in the game, being able to deal with whatever adversity comes throughout the course of the game. Sometimes you're going to be up, sometimes you're going to be behind, sometimes it's going to be tied. There's going to be a lot of different challenges that you face, you see those, you deal with them, and you move on. I've been pleased with that, too."
BILLS: What a difference a month makes.
It was on October 19th that the Buffalo Bills moved to 5-1 and into control of the AFC East with an impressive 23-14 home victory over the San Diego Chargers.
Reporters were digging out those notes about 5-1 teams and their usual fate as playoff entries, quarterback Trent Edwards looked like he would need to make reservations for that Pro Bowl trip to Hawaii, and talk was rife of head coach Dick Jauron's imminent signing of a contract extension.
One month later, the Bills are just another middling 5-5 team, Edwards isn't even a cinch to keep his job until the end of the year, and, after Monday night's galling 29-27 home loss to the Cleveland Browns, Jauron does not rate high on the list of Bills fans' favorite luminaries.
Jauron didn't throw those three first-quarter interceptions, that was Edwards (16-of-26, 148 yards, 1 TD), but his conservative approach in the final seconds, with the Bills trying to get into position for a game-winning field goal try, has led to some second-guessing.
With the ball at the Browns 34-yard-line, the Bills opted for three straight inside running plays instead of throwing the ball to get kicker Rian Lindell a few yards closer on a crisp night at Ralph Wilson Stadium.
The usually automatic Lindell missed his 47-yard field goal try wide right to send Buffalo to a fourth straight loss, the Bills' first four-game losing skid since it lost five in a row in 2005.
"I just missed my line," said Lindell of the miss. "I hit a good ball. I had a good approach. It just kept going straight right. I've got to make that. It's ridiculous."
The defeat dropped Buffalo alone into last place in the AFC East, including 0-4 in the division.
DOLPHINS: The Miami Dolphins' last two wins, narrow affairs over the struggling Seattle Seahawks (21-19) and Oakland Raiders (17-15), will not be judged as having historical importance as time marches on.
The victories have, however, moved the surprising Fins closer to a couple of notable historical benchmarks.
If they don't win another game this year, Miami will have already matched its best-ever turnaround, tying its jump from 4-12 in 2004 to 9-7 in its first year under Nick Saban in 2005. That one seems like a cinch, and the best single-season turnaround in NFL history is also within the sights of Tony Sparano's club.
The 1999 Indianapolis Colts, who finished 13-3 one season after going 3-13, are still the most abrupt worst-to-first story in NFL annals. The Dolphins would need to win out to surpass that mark, and would need to finish 11-5 to match it.
A record like that would be almost certain to get the Dolphins into the postseason for the first time since 2001, and will also keep Miami within range of an AFC East title that absolutely no one predicted the Dolphins would be in the ballpark of prior to the start of the season.
The team can take another major step toward that goal this week, when they try to complete their first home-and-home sweep of the New England Patriots since the 2000 season. The Fins were surprise 38-13 winners at the Patriots in Week 3.
"Every time you win," said defensive end Vonnie Holliday, "you give yourself an opportunity to be on a bigger stage and have a bigger opportunity.
"That's where we are, and while no believed we could be here, we did."
PATRIOTS: As 2008 training camp neared its end, there was speculation that Patriots quarterback Matt Cassel might not even make the 53-man roster.
Cassel had not played particularly well in the preseason, New England had used a third-round Draft choice on San Diego State's Kevin O'Connell in April, and the other QB seen as being on the bubble, holdover Matt Gutierrez, had outplayed Cassel in the summer. There was also a chance Bill Belichick would scour the waiver wire to find a backup to Tom Brady.
But Cassel survived, and now all of that chatter seems like it occurred eons ago. Brady's injury forced the four-year USC backup into his first starting role since high school, and Cassel has responded by keeping the Patriots in the thick of the playoff race.
His tour de force came this past Thursday, when he completed 31-of-50 passes for 400 yards, three touchdowns, and zero interceptions, also rushing for 62 yards in the 34-31 overtime near-miss against the Jets.
Cassel was unable to complete the comeback with a win, but he did rally New England back from a deficit of 24-6, and his 16-yard touchdown pass to Randy Moss with a second to play in regulation rivaled any of the clutch throws made by Brady during his certain-Hall of Fame career.
Now in the final year of his contract, Cassel's role as the capable understudy could yield him a large monetary result as some team's leading man next season.
"It's definitely a confidence booster," said New England wideout Jabar Gaffney of Cassel's performance on Thursday. "We were down and he brought us all the way back and we had a chance.
"Matt played a hell of a game tonight."
