It wasn’t a flawless showing when the New England Patriots defeated the New York Jets in a 27-14 verdict at Gillette Stadium on Thursday night.
New England allowed Justin Fields and the Jets to score their first opening-drive touchdown of the season. Fields carved them up on a third-quarter drive later on. And New England’s stout run defense allowed 140 rushing yards to Fields (11 carries, 67 yards) and running back Breece Hall (14 carries, 58 yards), too. In the other phases, the offense had three drops and special teams missed a field goal. There were mistakes.
In the end, however, the Patriots did what they needed to do. They won on a short week. They beat a divisional opponent to maintain their AFC East lead. They won an eighth straight while playing 11 games in a row. There’s something to be said about all of that.
It wasn’t lost on our Patriots Postgame Live crew after the Week 11 matchup.
“I really believe that they have answered the bell throughout (the season) in terms of what Mike Vrabel has asked of them,” Tom E. Curran said on the postgame show. “Not the crispest win, but take care of business.”
Phil Perry agreed.
“That’s the Patriots taking care of business,” he said. “That’s them outclassing an opponent that really doesn’t have the talent to keep up. Even though Thursday night sometimes those are the games where the bad teams are able to keep up with the good ones just because of the spot. And so I give Mike Vrabel, I give his staff a lot of credit for having them ready, having them energized. It wasn’t a mistake-free game, but they were sound enough for long enough to beat a team they should have beat.”
Curran specifically lauded the wide receiver room, which led the offensive attack. Drake Maye continued to showcase connections with wideout Stefon Diggs (nine catches, 105 yards) and Mack Hollins (four catches, 64 yards).
“When you look at the flip of the Patriots now being a wide receiver-driven team as opposed to a running back or tight end-drive team in terms of receptions for the quarterback, you’ve seen a real metamorphosis,” Curran said.
The Patriots earned another win. It wasn’t long ago when those were hard to come by.
