Knee Jerk Reactions to Week 11: Patriots vs. Jets

Things to consider while gently holding anyone who took such a big load, affectionately giving them praise, stroking their hair and telling them how good they were to give Daddy what he likes:

--First, a disclaimer: Any joke, sentence, word, punctuation mark or one of the many, many typos in the paragraphs to follow that sound remotely negative should be taken in the spirit with which they are intended. I'm grading on the curve here. Whatever I say shouldn't be taken as a knock on a 9-2 football team on an absolute two-month heater that has exceeded even my wildest expectations. It's a knock on Thursday games in general. These games are dreadful. The players aren't ready. The coaches aren't ready. The officials aren't ready. It should be called Thursday Night Football-Like Substance. It's a vaguely Monday Night Football-shaped object. A pro football tribute band. The Off-Broadway show based on the NFL's songbook, but only the ones Jeff Bezos could secure the rights to. And even this game, which was better than most of these, and an artistic triumph compared to that dog's breakfast ESPN served up Monday, was still a football substitute. The Cool Whip of primetime sports.  It was I Can't Believe It's Not Patriots-Jets, Light. These lousy games would have been the death of poor Al Michaels years ago if he wasn't still taking his daily unicorn blood. 

--And while I'll concede the Jets were playing on the same lack of rest, that game the Pats had in Tampa was brutal. Sixty minutes of physical, punishing tackle football. It was Hagler vs Hearns, except it went 12 rounds. Also, the weather last night wasn't doing anyone any favors. I was there and watched for a while from the standing area in the end of the stadium opposite the lighthouse, and it was one of those nights where you want to cut open an extra Tauntaun. Patriots players this week opted to practice outside instead of inside the bubble, like true professionals, dedicated to preparing themselves to deal with the elements. I'm none of those things. I lasted a quarter before I dedicated myself to the Press Box which has a heating system and chowder. 

--But I looked smashing:

--And that game presentation included the Nor'easter uniforms. They're moving merch on that look, there's no question. Based on what I saw, sales of jerseys and winter hats in that color are doing well. Which is entirely the point of rolling out the aesthetic. It's popular. But speaking only for me, that color palette doesn't say, "Intimidating look based on the uniforms of the intrepid militiamen who fearlessly took on the world's biggest empire and gave birth to liberty we get our name from," as much as it says, "Honey, take a look at this swatch. How do you think it will look as an accent wall in the foyer?" 

--Oh, right. The actual game. It should begin with TreVeyon Henderson, for the simple fact that rookies simply do not have three touchdown days. It hasn't happened since Gronk in 2010. This makes five scores for him in two weeks, which happens even less. A bench-clearing brawl broke out in the comments section of my KJRs from Sunday's game because someone dared suggest Henderson was better than Rhamondre Stevenson. Well Henderson just entered the chat. And I think moved ahead of Stevenson on the depth chart. His numbers won't blow your hair back, but neither has Stevenson's. What he proved is that he can be your durable, dependable, 3-down back and carry the - I can't avoid saying it - big load. While I think he's getting better at setting up his blocks once you do get him outside the tackles, he's not some limited, one-trick pony that you need to put out into space and attack the edges with. He can handle the dive plays, gap runs, inside powers. He's starting to hit holes faster and get his pads low to take advantage of his lack of size.

--He used all those skills on his second touchdown. A misdirection out of an offset I with Jared Wilson pulling to Jack Westoff's side to get the Jets flowing to the backside, before he even reached the line of scrimmage he put Micheal Clemons on the turf with a jump cut, and outran Jowon Briggs, then had to stay on his feet when Jamien Sherwood wrapped him up and keep his feet moving until his offensive line formed a Fellowship that got the Ballbearer safely out of the Mines of Moria: 

--His first was set up by a 9-yard shot through the G-T gap where he bowled over Tony Adams. The score came on a straight power-I out of Tank formation with Michael Onewnu pulling that could've come out of Fritz Pollard's playbook:

--And it wasn't just that one run, but a pattern that's been emerging:

--I assumed TVH would be that prototypical 3rd down back that the Pats scheme has always relied on since Charlie Weis was running all his circuitry through Kevin Faulk. Those backs typically needed a good two years before you could find the right adapters and plug into them reliably. Henderson's growth has taken half a season, and defenses can't keep him out of the end zone.

--His Treyfecta was the result of great route architecture from Josh McDaniels, who's really been adding layers to the parfait of red zone calls as the season's gone on. One week he lines Stefon Diggs and Mack Hollins out to the left and runs a smoke route where Diggs slants in behind Hollins' legal pick. The next he counters that with a switch release where Diggs catches one at the boundary. Here, he floods the short-side of the field with a Dagger concept and Hunter Henry runs an over-the-ball route. Henderson runs through three Jets like they're sheets drying on a clothesline because they were too preoccupied with Diggs releasing into the flat. And Drake Maye tracked him every step of the way for the pitch and catch:

--People might try to make a deal about Maye not hitting on a ton of explosive, 20+ yard throws like he has been. Which doesn't mean he wasn't accurate by any stretch; his first incompletion came on his 12th attempt and hit Hollins in the palms. Later in the 2nd quarter he hit Diggs on deep middle shot but he couldn't hold on. But the drive that ended with that throw to Henderson included Hollins high-pointing a hinge route for 17. Maye escaping to hit Diggs for 21. And a designed rollout where Maye waited for the corner to come up to stop him before hitting Diggs for 18. So there's three, let's call them, "implosive" plays. Still enough to do plenty of damage and inflict mass casualties. 

--It's that middle one of those three passes we need to look at, because it demonstrates a huge step in Maye's development. This one got the Greek Chorus of Gillette to start the MVP chants that lasted the whole rest of the night:

He's developing that innate pocket presence. That Spidey Sense that tingles when he's being pressured, without having to take his eyes off the secondary. Where he can flow away from it and stay in a position to throw while his routes develop. Tom Brady was born with it, and perfected it early in his career. All due respect, Drew Bledsoe never seemed to pick it up. One legit criticism you could have so far in Maye's career is he's often been too quick to pull the ball down and start his escape route. Now that he's adding this tool to his box, he's going to have defensive coordinators choking down those pills with the list of side effects so long they have to play them at 3x speed ("… such as fainting, swelling of your face, eyelids, lips, mouth, tongue, or throat; difficulty breathing, unusual dark urine, or light-colored stools'), just to game plan for him.

--Maye's already beginning to get more time to throw, as DCs have begun deploying more QB spys to take away his runs. That's reduced his scrambles (he had 4 attempts for 2 yards), but eliminated a blitzer, resulting in this, according to nerdalytics:

--Which is both a testament to Maye's athleticism being a force-multiplier that takes away how teams would prefer to play him, and also to the credit of his pass protection. The rookies in particular, who created much wringing of hands and consternation back in August when the left side of the line was placed in their supposedly stubby, short little arms. Jared Wilson blocked on 40 dropbacks and didn't give up as much as a pressure. And Will Campbell is an absolute maniacal Nordic berzerker. Every week he's stacking bodies like a cord of wood, including 6-foot-5-inches and 265 pounds of Clemons:

--One wrinkle McDaniels added to the blocking was scrapping the Khyiris Tonga experiment (for now), and going with a lot of Ben Brown as a second tight end in place of Austin Hooper. It seemed like every other down they were announcing No. 77 as an eligible receiver, which is not something they talk a lot about at the meetings of Backup Center Club. Sadly he never got his opportunity to catch one. For now his reps are still going to Diggs, Hollins and Pop Douglas. Such as on this crosser that's he's been getting open on since he was a rookie:

It's become his signature. Going to a game and not seeing him rip at least one of these is like buying Coldplay tickets and they decide not to do "Something Just Like This." You'd be cheating your audience. 

--One Pats wideout who's not quite as plugged in is Kyle Williams, who looked terrible on his two targets. On one, he turned inside when the throw game outside. On the worse one, he broke off a route and ran a hinge, when Maye was expecting a Go, and the ball landed a good 25 yards from where Williams stopped. He's got a learning curve like that Mountain Climber game on The Price is Right. I have faith he'll climb it; different guys develop at different speeds. But it's going to get much tougher for him to find opportunities once Kayshon Boutte's hammie is cleared by medical.

--It's taken me way too long to get to the other side of the ball, and for that I apologize, because they did what they needed to. Granted, they still have a problem:

Last week Justin Fields only completed two passes beyond the line of scrimmage, for 3- and 4-yards. In that opening drive last night, the Jets looked like a functioning 2025 NFL passing offense. I cannot explain it. Maybe it's strategic. Like Napoleon at Austerlitz, making the Russians and Austrians think he line was weak in the middle and letting them press the attack early on, before the threw in his reserved and cavalry to slaughter the Allies by the tens of thousands. That's more or less what keeps happening on the subsequent possessions of all these games. Maybe they could solve it by putting VR headsets on everyone in the pregame and showing them a virtual first drive so they can mentally begin with a second drive. But after 11 weeks, it's no longer a bug; it's a feature of Vrabel's defense. 

--A much better feature remains, of course, Christian Gonzalez, who was for the most part on Adonai Mitchell, who managed one catch for 10 yards, and it was not when Gonzalez was in coverage. Unofficially Gonzo was targeted 7 times and gave up one catch for 2 yards. He's the last great gift from GM Bill Belichick that keeps on giving.

--It seemed to me like the plan was to stay in Cover-1 with Craig Woodson and Jaylinn Hawkins alternating at post safety, except on obvious passing downs, load the box, and dare Fields to beat their press man coverage. Where they kept getting hurt was Fields escaping and picking up 1st downs with his legs. Which, while frustrating, is not going to beat Maye and his receivers on a night when Diggs is cracking 100 yards and Hollins is averaging 16.0 per reception.

--Defensively, the challenge was making do without Milton Williams, who left early with an ankle injury, returned momentarily, and then sat the rest of the night. Christian Barmore picked up a lot of the slack and once again seemed to be on the ballcarrier all night. And Elijah Ponder subbed in for probably the best game of his career, with 5 tackles, a TFL, a sack, and a QB hit.

--Also, K'Lavon Chaisson continues to show why Jacksonville took him No. 20 overall. He chased Fields out of the pocket, then back into the pocket, to commit a weird, video game-like intentional grounding:

--This Week's Applicable Movie Quote: "Henderson Tower, this is Darkstar. We are taxiing for takeoff." - Maverick, Top Gun: Maverick

--These are just incredible times to be invested in this franchise. They've already secured a winning record for the first time since 2021. They're both beating the teams they need be at their best to compete with (Buffalo, Tampa), while beating up on the losers they might otherwise get caught looking past (Carolina, the Jets). They're winning at home, on the road, and in national games where the whole world gets to bear witness to what Mike Vrabel has built in an astonishingly short amount of time. 

It's like the past three years never happened. That those seasons were all some psychotic breakdown we suffered. Like when people come down with Capgras Syndrome and think all their friends and family have been replaced by imposters. We're better now, and can recognize our football team again:

The faces might be different, but we know a tough, smart, disciplined, resourceful, well-coached, well-quarterbacked group that practices teamwork and knows how to win. And that's why the whole experience of going to Gillette is a good as it's ever been:

--Now they're on a mini-bye where they're off until November 23rd. Then it's onto Cincinnati, but the Cincinnati that will likely be 3-7. Enjoy these days. And your weekend. By buying a shirt like all the cool kids have.