With a win Thursday night, New England can put New York on life support.
A certain New York City tabloid recently ran a picture of Jets coach Rex Ryan carrying a tray with Bill Belichick’s head stuffed inside a turkey. The message conveyed was that the New England Patriots were being buttered up and prepared for a feast.
Clever, sure, but the truth is that the Jets are the ones entering Thursday night’s game at MetLife Stadium at risk of being fried. If the Patriots lose, they’re still up three games in the AFC East standings. If New York falls, its hopes of winning the division crown would die with its next loss or another New England win.
And, yes, the thought of burying the Jets has crossed a few minds.
“Obviously, you look at this as a chance to separate yourself from the rest of the pack,” said linebacker Jerod Mayo. “We handled the Bills – now this is a chance for us to distance ourselves.“
Victory isn’t guaranteed. The Patriots needed overtime to drop the Jets on Oct. 21, 29-26, and that was with both Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez on the field. This time, Gronkowski, the team’s leading red-zone threat, will be sidelined with a broken forearm suffered Sunday against the Colts, and Hernandez will be attempting to play for the first time in three weeks due to an ankle injury.
On the other side, the Jets are starting to get healthy and are coming off a 27-13 win against the St. Louis Rams. The win helped rejuvenate the Jets’ locker room, but they know they will be fighting to stay alive against New England.
“We’re happy we got the victory and things, but we put ourselves back so far that we can just – the only thing we can do is focus on the now,“ Ryan said. “In our current situation, that’s trying to prepare to the best of our ability and keep trying to improve. That’s where we’re at.“
And determining which team comes out alive will boil down to which team was able to best prepare during the short week. New England would typically be favored since Belichick typically thrives in such situations, but losing Gronkowski takes away much of the familiarity on offense.
New England is also trying to piece together the parts in its revamped secondary, a process that would have benefited from extra preparation. And judging from Tom Brady’s comments Thursday, focus may not have been sharp as preferred this week.
“We don’t have much (time),” Brady said. “Hopefully everyone is spending their
time wisely, not playing video games and stuff like that. Trying to understand and what we need to do. It’s a very tough place to play.”
Perhaps Brady meant nothing by his comments. And as the Patriots have a chance to take a stranglehold on the division and turn their focus on catching the division-leading Houston Texans, who come to town on Dec. 10, hopefully that’s the case.
We’ll know the answer by the time people are lining up in front of stores for Black Friday.