The 2021 QB draft class is looking worse with every game that goes by. The New England Patriots and the New York Jets combined for a grand total of 13 POINTS in 60 minutes, but a last second punt return nearly made up for the offensive woes as the Pats beat the Jets 10-3.
Well, this review could have been a whole lot more negative if the final ten seconds of the game never happened. I mean, that last-second punt return by Marcus Jones to seal the Jets fate doesn’t make up for the fact that the Patriots and Jets offenses only scored a combined 6 points, but it sure does make me happy that the Pats didn’t lose to the Jets by getting shut out of the endzone.
I thought the Patriots last season had a dreadful offense, but this year is really taking the cake. Sure, Mac Jones had a very accurate game as he made 23/27 throws for 224 yards but a lot of those throws were checkdowns or slant routes that picked up more yardage for Jones after the catch.
In fact, the leading receiver for the Patriots was RB Rhamondre Stevenson as he had 6 catches for 56 yards, while he also had another 15 CAR for 25 yards in a pitiful day for the offense. Moreover, their second leading receiver on the day was their slot receiver Jakobi Meyers as he had 4 catches for 52 yards, which just shows how deceptively poor Jones was on the day.
There wasn’t a single Patriots receiver who had more than 60 yards receiving or 8+ catches, showing that Matt Patricia, Joe Judge, and Bill Belichick have lost all of their trust in Jones to make crucial, decisive throws that he was making earlier in the year.
Seeing how the Patriots defense dominated the Jets today, the Patriots should have won this game in the 2nd Quarter if Jones was actually used as a quarterback and not just a glorified game manager.
Am I being too harsh on Jones? Maybe. But is it also true to say that he’s drastically regressed from the Pro-Bowl QB who was just finding his confidence towards the end of the season last year? Most definitely. So, given how his draft class compatriot played for the Jets today, I don’t think it’s an overreaction to say that the QBs from that draft class (aside from Justin Fields) have underperformed so far in the NFL.
Speaking of Jones’ 2021 draft compatriot, Zack Wilson really laid an egg today.
Bill Belichick has this poor kid’s number bad as he’s now 4-0 against the young QB and his defenses have dominated every game he’s played against the Jets.
The Patriots defense was all over Wilson as they sacked him 4 times, they had 3 PD against him, they hit him (QB hit) on another 6 occasions, and they stuffed his rushing attack with 7 TFL. Plus, Jonathan Jones should have had another pick on Wilson as he just missed out on the interception before the game-winning punt return.
To be honest, it wouldn’t shock me if Wilson has nightmares of Belichick and Matt Judon tonight as the league’s leading sack artist added another 1.5 sacks to his tally, bringing it up to 12.5 on the season. At the very least, it was obvious he was having a nightmare on the field as he only completed 7/22 passes for 77 yards. Pretty bad, right?
It gets even worse when you see that out of the 103 total yards of offense the Jets accumulated, only 2 yards came in the second half. Yup, the Patriots defense kept the Jets to just 2 YARDS of TOTAL OFFENSE in the final 30 minutes of the game. This Pats defense is legit.
Though, the Jets defense was just as good as the Patriots as they kept a game in which their offense only earned 2 yards of total offense in the second half to a one score affair. Led by Quennin Williams, Quincey Williams, Jordan Whitehead, Sauce Gardner, and C.J. Mosley, the Jets defense had 68 tackles, 6 sacks, 8 TFL, 2 PD, and 8 QB hits as they crushed the Patriots running game into smithereens.
The two Williams and the rest of the defensive line were especially dominate as they held both Damien Harris and Rhamondre Stevenson, two running backs that are more than capable of breaking for 120+ yards, to a combined 91 yards. If the Jets didn’t have such an inept offense, then I’d say this team was a Super Bowl contender because of this defense. You just can’t throw or rush on them.
Anyway, Marcus Jones thankfully put this game out of its misery by returning an 84-yard punt return with under 5 seconds left in the game to avoid the 10-minute overtime period all of us fans were dreading.
The AFC East is going to come down to the wire this year as the Patriots (6-4), the Jets (6-4), the Bills (7-3), and the Dolphins (7-3) are all within one game of one another with just eight games left. I can’t believe I’m actually going to say this but all four teams in the division might actually make the playoffs this season, which would surely cause the second coming of the meteor that took out the dinosaurs if it happens.
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