Wednesday, September 23, 2009
New Guest Column By Mike Scanlon
Editor’s Note: Mike Scanlon returns to GoPats.com as a guest columnist. He first wrote for us a while back, and we hope there will be more to come! As always, feedback and comments are welcome!
A Tale of 2 Halves
Depending on which half of this week’s Patriots, Jets game you watched, you would have drawn vastly different conclusions. The end result though is that Tom Brady lost his first regular season game in nearly three years today, and almost as incredibly his first loss to the co-residents of Giants Stadium at their home EVER.
What went wrong?
Last week the Patriots first half looked pretty similar. Nearly 200 yards of offense this week, 230 last week. Lead by 4 points at the end of the first half last week, 6 points this week, Brady completed similar amounts of passes. What’s the difference?
These aren’t the hapless, shoot themselves in the foot, take the ball out of the endzone with nothing to gain Buffalo Bills. THAT’S THE DIFFERENCE. The Jets are a young, well coached, hungry team that stayed focused in the face of adversity. Something we’re not all that used to from our neighbors to the south.
But I digress, the tale of 2 halves was quite striking. During the first half the Patriots sustained drives of 43, 5,(-10),23,53 and 79 yards, scoring 3 times for a total of 9 points. Their starting field position was a respectable average of the 30 yard line. As good as the Patriots performance was during this first half, the Jets was, well, uninspiring to say the least. The Jets progressed the ball an eye popping -1 yard during the first quarter. -1 yards! I beat that amount and never left my couch (except to open some chips and open the door for the pizza guy). The Jets finished up the first half with a total of 48 yards of offense.
The second half looked like the first, except the Patriots looked and played like the first half Jets. The visitors could only sustain drives of 0, 18,17, 14 and 18 yards. They were unable to execute those crutial drives that we have come to expect from Brady and the Pats. With 1:48 on the clock, the ball on their own 10 yard line, Tom Brady took the field, needing a touchdown to win the game. 29 times in the past we were treated to similar game ending situations, 29 times Tom Terrific has marched his team down the field to plunge a dagger into the hearts of their opponents. Unlike all those times however, the Pats could only muster 5 plays and 18 yards before they ran out of downs and chances.
While its true that the Patriots should have made more of their three scoring drives during the first half. Combinations of Brady overthrowing receivers and good coverage by the Jets stopped the Pats short. It’s also true that the Patriots had no answer to Mark Sanchez and his two-headed rushing team of Leon Washington and Thomas Jones. The two combined for 28 carries and 112 yards of rushing.
Question: Is Tom still tentative after his year out from the game? Is the defense reeling from the retirements of Rodney Harrison, Teddy Bruschi and the departure of Richard Seymour? The answer is probably a little of each, with a dash of New York hospitality thrown in for good measure. The answer is that they’ll need to account for these changes if they are to have success this year. They can’t rely on opponents self destructing like the Bills did. Expect opponents to play more like the Jets… during the second half that is.
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