TBC

Things to consider while second-guessing Rex Ryan’s decision not to punt on 1st & 10:

*If you love to get drunk off the tears of Jets fans, and God knows I do, then yesterday was Dalmore 62 Highland Single Malt. Remember the way Wayne Chrebet used to torture the Patriots? Well those 10 catch, 100 yard games were just minor wedgies compared to the abject torment the Jets suffered at the hands of Wes Welker yesterday. If Welker had one more catch or broke the 200 yard mark, Amnesty International was going to petition Obama to shut down Gilletanamo.

*And everything that’s wrong with the Jets was summed up when Paul Blart, Head Coach was congratulating Darrelle Revis for the job he did on Randy Moss. Saying one corner shut down one guy on a day when another guy had 192 yards is like the Germans bragging about what a good job their doing on the Western Front while the Russians are breaking into the liquor cabinet in Berchtesgarten.

*For the record, I didn’t stick around to dissect the All Important Coaches Handshake. But if Belichick deserves the Nobel Peace Prize if he gave T-Rex anything more than the Bud Adams Salute.

*And make no mistake, this time Belichick X’ed and O’ed circles around Ryan. The Jets were doing what they always do, putting Revis on Moss. So on one play, the Pats put Moss in motion and Revis didn’t follow, indicating zone coverage. The very next play, Moss faked going into motion and came back to the outside with Welker in the slot. But once he started moving, Revis had dropped back into a soft zone. On the snap, Moss ran a little curl route, which drew 4 very confused DB’s while Welker ran a go route up the seam, uncovered for 43 yards. Scheme-wise, it was complete domination on the Pats part. Like a Roland Emmerich movie, with Ryan as the Earth and Belchick as the Mayan calendar.

*My brother Jack and I talked after the game and we agreed that with each passing week it gets harder to make sense of what the Pats are trying to do on either side of the ball. They’ll put Mathew Slater in at wideout on the goal line (he threw the kick out block on the corner on Maroney’s 2nd TD), go an entire game without throwing to the TE’s, play Leigh Bodden and Jonathan Wilhite every snap of the game, move Vince Wilfork out to end at will, throw crucial passes to Isaiah Stanback, run a QB sneak with Julian Edelman or put Mark LeVoir in as an eligible receiver. There’s literally nothing they’re incapable of trying. Which is a great quality in, say, a wife. But in a football team, it’s a little maddening.

*So really, the thing to do is not try to make sense of the details. When you’re putting up 300+ passing yards and 30+ points every week, it’s best to just step back and look at the big picture because if you get too close it looks crap. Just like with Impressionist paintings or Eva Longoria.

*Though I will admit I loved the QB sneak by Edelman call. It was a brilliant idea. Too bad the execution was uglier than Jim Nantz’ divorce.

*Wilhite is an enigma. He runs stride for stride with anybody, gets good position, plays the correct shoulder, but he still manages to give up a highlight reel touchdown every week. He was stuck to Jerricho Cotchery like a lamprey. But just like with Pierre Garcon last week, perfect throw, perfect catch. What I don’t know about playing corner could fill a library, but maybe if he could learn to do all that while putting his hands up it might help.

*I’ve come up with a new time management technique. Anything on my To-Do List I’m going to save for the next time Jeff Triplett is reffing a game. Between the blown calls, herd-of-zebra huddles, challenges, reviews and ten minute explanations of simple incomplete passes, I can get a week’s worth of household chores and all my Christmas shopping done without missing a play.

*And there’s something about Triplett that bugs me. He got that whole “I might talk like a hayseed but I’m gonna put one over on you city folk” thing going. Like a small town mechanic sticking it to a car load of tourists. Twice Brady was called for delay of games, despite the fact that he’s spent ten years mastering the art of running the clock down to :01. And each time when he protested, Triplett just dismissed him like he was arguing the bill for a blown radiator hose. I half expected him to say “Now you just hold yer wad there, sonny” and spit tobacco juice while Back Judge and the Line Judge howled over a barrel with a checkerboard on top.

*And while we’re on the subject of blown calls, is it my imagination or do the Patriots have the worst system for using the challenge flag in the NFL? You’d think they’d have somebody upstairs reviewing every replay angle possible then letting the sidelines know if they call is reversible. I have to think that either that’s not how they do it, or the guy they’ve got up in the booth looking over the replays is a retired WWE referee because they blow more of these things than any team in the league.

*And while we’re piling on Gomer Triplett, there’s no way at the end of the half when the official upstairs called for the booth review of Welker’s catch, that he blew the whistle before Brady got the snap off. That was just him adding a new brake job onto the bill. Though to be fair, that 6 yard mistake on the spot of the ball was no worse than the one they called on Kevin Faulk last week.

*Wilfork is hands down the best interior lineman in the league right now. Right from the jump he started abusing Nick Mangold and Alan Faneca. And on 3rd down of the Jets first possession he was two steps forward and past Brandon Moore before Ty Warren even got out of his stance to stuff Thomas Jones for a loss. And the way he and Adalius Thomas blew up the one Pistol Option play New York ran (VW coming from LDE on that one), I’m guessing that scheme is off to the Museum of Failed Offenses.

*A tip of the hat to the Gillette crowd too, who came ready for this one. There’s nothing like having the man who built the dynasty get ripped incessantly from coast to coast all week to snap the wine & Chardonnay crowd out of their usual game day somnambulance. And they didn’t even need the coach sending out “Come show up to the pep rally” robo-calls.

*I have to give credit where it’s to Thomas, who had significant reps for the first time since his benching and conducted himself well. The play where he lifted Jones off his feet and pile drove him into the turf was Tippettian. I mean, you get frustrated with the lack of a pass rush from him, but then again there was a piece in the Globe’s Extra Points blog where Belichick was saying that he’s pleased with the way Derrick Burgess is handling being asked to do things like cover, set the edge, and basically do non-pass-rushy stuff which he’s never done before. I guess it’s just not a Belichickian thing to let guys like Thomas and Burgess pin their ears back and sell out on the rush, so it looks like their dogging it when they’re just (altogether now) Doing. Their. Jobs.

*The lone exception seems to be Tully Banta Cain, who for some reason they let off his leash, and he usually delivers. On the QB sack where he beat D’Brickashaw Ferguson, he out ran, out muscled and D’Bitchslapped him.

*Though the Pats didn’t blitz nearly as much as Phil Simms was making out. On Bodden’s pick-6 for instance, they only rushed four. Jerod Mayo was there because he was spying Jones, who hung back in pass protection. There was pressure for sure, but it was just the Pats beating blocks, which is apparently enough to cause Sanchez to stress puke and throw into tight press coverage.

*All in all, a pretty nice performance by a defense that was so severely disrespected by their jackass coach last week (and again this week) just so could demonstrate his smarter-than-everyone-else hubris.

*I suppose The Sanchize would have an easier time reading the Pats defense if someone drew it up for him on 3X5 cards.

*Another nice little wrinkle came on Bodden’s 2nd INT, when Brandon McGowan followed Dustin Keller in motion, but instead of staying with him in man coverage, blitzed from the side he’d switched to and went in unblocked. What an amazing pickup this kid has been.

*Getting back to the earlier theme, there’s not a guy in the Jets defense who won’t be showing up to the Wes Welker Victims Support Group meeting. Bart Scott, David Harris, Jim Leonhard and Eric Smith will be bringing the coffee and doughnuts. And that reverse when he ran over Leonhard (with help from a great Stanbeck block on Revis) was one of those rarest of incidents: white skill position player-on-white skill position player crime.

*In Kerry Rhodes’ campaign for Pro Bowl votes, this was the equivalent of taking some primaries off.

*LeVoir is a beast by the way. The Maroney 1 yarder came behind a block he threw on the massive Marques Douglas and we need a new term to describe how deep into the ground he buried Donald Strickland on the WR screen. I’m going to suggest “he spelunked him.” Plus he was nimble on the fumble recovery. Suddenly the tackle spot is one of the deepest positions on the team.

*Still, as big a beating as the Jets took, at least no one can ever take those Week 2 Super Bowl rings away from them.