NY Jets @ New England Patriots Report Card

by Patrick Stanton
JetNation Senior Columnist

QUARTERBACK

Brooks Bollinger (15/37, 135, 0 TD 1 INT): F This kid goes up and down more then Paris Hilton in night vision. After looking good against a poor Saints defense last week, he faced a Patriots Defense that ranked statistically worse and managed to make them look like the 85 Bears. Bollinger was rattled on numerous occasions by a blitzing New England Defense and ineffective all day.

RUNNING BACK

Curtis Martin (15 rushes, 29 yards, 1.9 avg, 5 long): F Listen, the offensive line is bad, but come on, they’re not THAT bad. One of the following things is absolute fact and must be accepted immediately: 1) Martin’s age has caught up with him and his day as a primary RB is over or 2) Martin is nursing some sort of injury but is nonetheless playing to achieve his 1000 yard season. Martin looks slow, old and obsolescent out there and it’s becoming painful to watch. Here’s the telltale factoid of the day: Brooks Bollinger had 12 yards rushing on one play which when factored in is actually 41% of Martins overall total on the day.
Martin currently has 706 yards with 4 games remaining and if you do the math, Martin needs to average 73.5 yards per game to finish out the season with an even 1000. Since busting out his only 100+ yard game against Buffalo in week 6, he’s been averaging 50.5 ypg. He needs 294 yards to get his 1000 in 4 remaining games and in the past 6 games he has gotten 303. Martin’s remaining opponents all rank in the bottom third of the league in average rushing yards yielded per game and when I do the math, the 4 opponents give up an average 126.5 yards per game on the ground. It should be interesting.

WIDE RECEIVERS/TIGHT ENDS: Incomplete

Grading these guys would be like passing out a test with only half the questions printed on it and still throwing a mark on it when it’s handed in. Besides, when it comes to Jets WRs/TEs, ‘incomplete’ is the perfect term.

OFFENSIVE LINE: D-
They avoid the F grade due to the aforementioned Bollinger and Martin and their respective ‘short comings’. They were running around like chickens with their heads cut off all day and at times the Jets backfield looked like an impromptu campfire being held by members of the Patriots defense. They could barely move the Patriots off the line of scrimmage and couldn’t stop molasses from rushing Bollinger today.

DEFENSIVE LINE: C
On a good note, the Jets DL accounted for both of NY’s sacks today and held New England’s leading rusher (Dillon) to 65 yards total rushing. Additionally, they played a big role in holding the Patriots to 1 touchdown and forced 2 Patriot FGs vs. allowing TDs inside the red zone. On the downside, they still gave up a total 146 yards on the ground to 4 Patriot rushers and most of the time, Brady had all day to throw.

LINEBACKERS: C+
As with the DL, the Jets line backing corps did a good job of slowing and at times, stopping the Patriots run game from being effective. Unfortunately as the case has been all year, they were still shaky against the pass.

DEFENSIVE BACKS: F
Are we playing man or zone out there? It’s hard to tell because there’s never a Jets DB within 5 yards of an opponent’s receiver this year regardless. Jets DBs stunk up the joint today and it allowed Brady to pick them apart, throwing for 271. They had more holes then Swiss cheese and looked completely lost for most of the game.

SPECIAL TEAMS:
Ben Graham (6 punts, 42 avg , 49 long, 3 inside 20yd line) – A I’m desperate to issue a good grade and Graham’s the only on that deserves one. (Writer’s note: you know it’s a pathetic season when I’m displaying that many statistics for a punter)

Mike Nugent (1/1, Made:38) B+ Well we know he can make FGs in the show. That’s good I guess. Maybe one of these years he’ll get a chance to play late into January.

COACHING: D
Nice game plan Herm. 164 total yards against the second worst defense in the league. I know those guys suck but come on, 164? Cedric Houston – 0/0, 0 yds. It would be nice to know what our RB situation is going to be next year and keeping Houston on the bench all year isn’t exactly helping. This season is such a disaster that it has become all about getting Curtis Martin his 1000 yards and to a point I can understand that, but when the season is this hopeless, you have to start looking towards what you’re going to have next year. I’m not going to knock Edwards for trying to salvage something positive out of this season, but next year if there’s a giant question mark at RB, I don’t want to hear a single excuse.

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