Learning from Mistakes

Edition #263

Good morning!

It’s officially game week. Our focus now turns to the New England Patriots and after they walked out of Metlife with a victory, it’s time for a little payback.

The Patriots have a strange effect on the Jets, they coaxed us into abandoning the gameplan that had worked so well through the season, and as a result, we weren’t able to stick with them.

Do the Jets have a better team than the Patriots, in my mind the answer is yes. But Bill is a hall-of-fame coach for a reason and it isn’t just Tom Brady as some suggest. The Jets need to learn from that game a few weeks ago and learn from their mistakes.

The Jets are opening the week at 3.5-point underdogs according to those Vegas mobsters, or bookies as we call them now. We’ve been underdogs all season and yet we’re 6-3, which means the bookies have been wrong far more than they’ve been right, hopefully, the same is true this week.

Some injury news ahead of the game on Sunday. Sheldon Rankins is out as is George Fant. The Jets have opened the practice window for Max Mitchell to return (21 days to activate him) and Corey Davis is still listed as day-to-day. Considering Fant was eligible to come off IR before the Buffalo game, to hear he’s still out 2 weeks later is a concern.

Garrett Wilson is getting open at the 8th-best rate in the NFL according to NFL Next Gen Stats, tied with Stefon Diggs and Justin Jefferson. That's not too bad.

The Jets put a waiver claim in for former Chargers first-round pick Jerry Tillery along with 7 other teams, but he was awarded to the Las Vegas Raiders due to the waiver priority order. Tillery would have been an interesting guy to have in the building with Rankins set to miss 4-6 weeks.

This is a big game for the Jets. Following the visit to New England, the Jets face the Justin Fields led Bears who are losing despite the QB playing out of his skin. They then face the Vikings who have lost once all season before flying into Buffalo. We don’t absolutely have to have this one as we’ve shown we can beat Buffalo and we’ve shown we’ll give anyone a game, we’re certainly a better team than the Bears. But it would be nice to go into that game against Chicago leading the AFC East.

Zach threw for 355 yards last time we faced off against New England, but he also completed less than 50% of his passes and threw 3 costly picks. At this point in his career, asking Wilson to win you the game by throwing 40+ times is a recipe for disaster, especially against Big Bill who’s honed a reputation for destroying (and I presume consuming) the souls of young quarterbacks trying to find their feet in the league.

On that occasion, the Jets rushed just 15 times for 51 yards, and Michael Carter got just 7 attempts. James Robinson had only just arrived so I wasn’t surprised to see him given just 5 attempts, but if the Jets want to walk out of Gilette with the victory they’ll not only need to start the game running the ball, but they’ll need to stick with it even if the early returns are minimal.

Against the Bills, the Jets carried the football 34 times for 174 yards with Carter and Robinson having 25 carries combined. That’s more what I’d expect to see from the game plan heading into New England.

There is a reason for optimism with Zach too. I think his game against Buffalo was overstated, but it can’t be denied that when Zach Wilson protects the football, the Jets tend to walk away with a victory. Mike LaFleur has also simplified the plan for Zach, against Buffalo he parked the long-developing passing plays that led to issues against New England, instead, he moved to a quick passing game and a death-by-thousand-cuts approach.

I’m quite tired of talking about Elijah Moore but I just can’t help but feel as though he’s still going to play a key part in our success over the rest of the season. When you’re talking about the quick game for Zach you rely on your route runners to gain quick separation, Garrett Wilson can do that with ease, but Elijah Moore can also do that, and now that he’ll be working in the slot more and in full view of Zach…that’s one to watch for me this weekend.

There’s another reason to keep an eye on Moore, as mentioned above Bellichick likes to take away your favored way to win. That will be the running game, but it will also be taking away Zach’s favorite target in Wilson. Garrett has been head and shoulders the most targeted receiver with Zach, that’s not going to go unnoticed. That’s not to say Wilson won’t have success, he had 6 catches for 115 yards a couple of weeks ago and Moore wasn’t in sight, but like we need to learn from mistakes, the Patriots will too.

Mac Jones isn’t the most athletic QB in the league and he’s not a threat to run like Justin Fields but he is a smart QB, last time we played he converted two key 3rd downs by scrambling and have another one that went for 12 yards on first down. Stopping teams on third down is obviously where you make your money and not letting Mac Jones out of the pocket in those situations should become a priority for the Jets this week. Jones has no hesitation in tucking it and running if the lane opens, making sure we close those lanes especially on third down is key. Two may not sound like a lot, but the Patriots only converted 6 third downs all day and 2 came from Mac Jones scrambling.

What destroyed us against the Patriots was the short passing game out of the backfield. Running back Rhamondre Stevenson led the Patriots with 72 yards on 7 catches, he also added 71 on the ground. Having someone dedicated to taking that easy pass away from Mac Jones will go a long way to halting the Patriot’s ability to move the football. Jones has only had one TD pass that was 10+ yards through the air, but has thrown 7 interceptions at the same depth. He completes 78.9% of passes between 0-10 yards and 3 of his 4 touchdowns have come here, the Jets are going to need to get a good game from their linebackers.

The Jets are saying all the right things and not getting carried away with their positive start, if they put a win on the Patriots then I feel we’ll be the ones getting carried away.