EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — So when did you realize the Patriots had stopped playing football Sunday and pivoted to disemboweling the Jets?
When Drake Maye ripped four touchdown passes before halftime?
When Stefon Diggs carved up their secondary at will?
Or when the Jets seemed to welcome death by calling fake punts on consecutive fourth downs as if all the Patriots’ coaches and players had suffered amnesia after their try and the second was painfully, predictably, stuffed?
Clearly, it did not matter the Pats themselves were gutted, playing without eight starters after veteran receiver Mack Hollins made a surprise move to injured reserve Saturday. Because even if you watched just a split second of this 42-10 erasure, you knew which team was playoff-bound and which probably spent part of halftime booking offseason travel to Cancun.
And yes, they’re the Jets. The godforsaken, godawful, butt-of-every-joke Jets. But let’s not delude ourselves into thinking any NFL team, especially one stripped of so many starters like the Patriots, can roll up a 32-point win any time it wants.
Only a few can. The steely, the tough, the contenders. Tested division champions like your Patriots.
Before Buffalo’s loss to the Eagles, the Pats not only didn’t nap Sunday — Mike Vrabel’s favorite way of saying his team maintained its focus. They didn’t relent.
Sunday was a demonstration of the Patriots’ killer instinct; a ruthlessness they don’t often flash or were even forced to wield during a sunny, storybook regular season. The skies of this season broke two weeks ago when Josh Allen and the Bills stormed back from a 21-point deficit to rain on what could have been a division title parade in Foxboro.
A week later, after authoring their own comeback win, Vrabel said that getting bruised in Baltimore was good for the Patriots. They had felt the pain, the pressure, of an 11-point deficit in the fourth quarter with a playoff berth at stake. They thrived under that stress.
Sunday, I would argue, offered another valuable stress test: how to thrive when the temptation to slow down and let up, abounds. The Patriots knew surviving would suffice against the Jets. They resisted anyway, a lesson learned.
“Obviously (against) Buffalo, we had that lead and kind of let it slip,” Patriots tight end Hunter Henry said post-game. “We were able to work on that in a way today, just trying to finish; trying to continue to play no matter the score.”
And this is what transforms a team’s intention into instinct, faith into confidence. Faith is just blind belief, while confidence must be earned through demonstrated ability. Through mid-November, the Patriots demonstrated they could contend with the league’s best when healthy, and kill off bad teams, even when they would sleepwalk after halftime.
Then the injury bug bit, Buffalo punished them for taking a second-half stroll, and the injury bug chomped down again.
So long, Milton Williams. Take care, Will Campbell and Robert Spillane. Get well soon, Kayshon Boutte, Jared Wilson, Khyiris Tonga and Harold Landry.
That left the Patriots’ depth — the soft underbelly of this roster dating back to the summer — fully exposed. So, how would their replacements play? How would their coaches protect the team and patch the obvious holes on this roster? Would they forge ahead, circumstances be damned?
Well, undrafted rookie receiver Efton Chism III scored a touchdown. The Patriots defense stopped the run cold until garbage time. And Josh McDaniels puppeteered six straight touchdown drives, including an opening possession where he deployed seven different personnel groupings in as many plays.
“When (McDaniels) gets dialed in and locked in on something,” Henry said, “he’s pretty hard to beat.”
Next up, it’s another division foe; ironically, the same Dolphins team the Patriots beat to take their first step toward change, the AFC East title and the undefeated road record they cemented Sunday.
“I think that that was just a really important game for us (in Miami),” Vrabel said post-game. “Being able to battle and give up a punt return (touchdown) … We talked (this week) about all those things that helped us along the way.”
From sunny South Florida to the smog of North Jersey, the Pats’ long regular-season road now leads back to Foxboro.
After that, at least one playoff test awaits.
But by the look of this win, there should be two.
Or perhaps three.
Or, with a little luck and the same edge they sharpened Sunday, maybe even four.
