Imagine if someone had actually covered Shane Vereen on the fifth play of Thursday night’s game. Not sure it would’ve mattered, given that the 49-yard touchdown pass from Tom Brady was so perfectly placed that it was as if the pigskin had a homing device targeting Vereen’s fingertips. But, had a Jet defender been in the vicinity, instead of lost in confusion half-a-field away, maybe things would’ve ended differently -- on the play, and in a game that the Jets should’ve won.
To say the Jets played the best game of their season at Gillette Stadium would be an understatement. On offense, they were formidable, racking up 28 first downs and 423 yards from scrimmage (almost evenly divided between the run and the pass), while controlling the ball for an absurd 41 minutes with -- get this -- nary a turnover. The visitors were so effective at moving the ball down the field that punter Ryan Quigley didn’t make an appearance until less than two minutes were left in the third quarter. On defense, they made Tom Brady -- arguably the best quarterback I’ve ever seen -- look merely very good while holding the home team to three-and-outs on five of their 10 possessions.
But in the end, Brady and the Pats were just good enough to get by with a 27-25 win, largely on the strength of that first-drive TD from Vereen and the game’s final play, when the Pats’ Chris Jones blocked Nick Folk’s 58-yard field goal attempt that would’ve given the Jets their biggest win in quite a while.
After essentially handcuffing Geno Smith in last week’s loss to the Broncos, Jets offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg seemed to set his QB loose, giving Smith the green light both to look downfield and to run if he saw an opening. The results were stunning. In short, Smith -- whom 99.9997 percent of the world’s population thinks should have been benched weeks ago for Michael Vick -- played his best game in more than a year.
Amid Smith’s well-documented struggles, it’s been easy to forget that, just two years ago, he was widely recognized as the best player in college football and the likely No. 1 pick in the 2013 NFL Draft (that was before his West Virginia squad followed a 5-0 start with a 2-7 finish). His performance Thursday night -- highlighted by two impressive drives in the last eight minutes -- made us remember.
At 1-6, it’s all but assured that the Jets won’t make the playoffs. But the game they played against the hated Pats proves that their season isn’t a lost cause.
