Four Ups, Four Downs From Patriots' Comeback Victory Over Jets
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- The Jets entered Sunday with a 3-7 record. Not many people believed they'd be able to keep it close vs. Tom Brady and the 8-2 Patriots.
Yet the Jets did more than keep it close; they actually held a fourth-quarter lead. Quincy Enunwa's touchdown early in the fourth quarter put the Patriots down by four points, forcing them to drive for a field goal to cut the lead to one before getting a stop and driving for the game-winning touchdown.
It was closer than anyone in New England wanted it to be, but the Patriots came away with a much-needed victory to improve to 9-2 on the season.
As you might imagine in a back-and-forth game, there were plenty of positives and negatives to take away from the 60 minutes of football.
FOUR UPS
Chris Long
It certainly wasn't the worst day a defense could have had, but considering the Patriots were up against a human turnover machine in Ryan Fitzpatrick, the defense definitely cannot be happy with giving up 269 passing yards and two touchdowns. But when it came to crunch time, it was Long who exploded off the right end of the defense and reached out to get his hand on the football before Fitzpatrick could get off a pass from his own 23-yard line.
Long got there just in time, freeing the ball from Fitzpatrick's grip at the last moment before the quarterback's arm began to move forward. Trey Flowers recovered the fumble, and with it, the Patriots had essentially sealed the victory.
Long has been a quiet contributor all season long, intently focused on doing what's been asked of him. That has not often resulted in big-time plays that show up on the highlight reel. That changed on this play, and it came at the perfect time.
Malcolm Mitchell
For the second straight Sunday, rookie receiver Malcolm Mitchell made a huge impact in the receiving game. Though he only caught five passes, he made them all count.
The first came on a third-and-5, when he showed great ball skills to fight for a 6-yard reception over cornerback Darryl Roberts. That helped keep a drive alive -- a drive that ended with the Patriots scoring their first points of the day with a Stephen Gostkowski field goal.
The second came on a second-and-goal from the 4-yard line. After Tom Brady fumbled the ball in the backfield, he picked it up and found Mitchell streaking along the back of the end zone. Mitchell made the catch on the run despite a bobble, and came down with the Patriots' first touchdown of the afternoon -- a score which tied the game at 10-10.
His third catch once again moved the chains, picking up 11 yards on a first-and-10. The same can be said for his fourth catch -- a 13-yard gain on a first down.
And it all set up his biggest catch of the day, on a first-and-goal from the 8-yard line just inside the two-minute warning in the fourth quarter. Mitchell got open, made the catch and cut just inside the front left pylon of the end zone to score the winning touchdown.
"I think Malcolm's really done a great job of gaining everybody's trust, because he shows up every day, works his butt off, is so committed to the team," Brady said after the win. "It means a lot to him. Football matters. And he's come through in the clutch. So we'll keep giving him opportunities."
Twice now in two weeks, Mitchell stepped up to score a huge fourth-quarter touchdown for the Super Bowl-contending Patriots. Not bad for a rookie.
James White
Though the running back's inability to get the ball across the goal line as he scampered into the end zone for a late two-point conversion is the most recent memory he's etched on viewers' brains, it was his play on a fourth-and-4 that really made the victory possible.
It was no ordinary play. White didn't simply run a route and catch a pass at his chest to pick up the first down. Instead, he broke to the right side on a fourth-and-4 from the Jets' 37-yard line. He caught Brady's pass in stride while keeping his momentum working directly toward the first down marker on the sideline. He outraced Darron Lee and slipped through the linebacker's tackle while falling forward at the sticks. He picked up the first down, and two plays later, the Patriots were in the end zone with the game-winning score.
"He made a great play because the ball was thrown short of the sticks. If we don't make that play, it's hard to win the game," Brady said. "We still had three timeouts and they would've gotten the ball and maybe we could've stopped him, but that was a game-winning play, a championship type of play that James made. He did enough to kind of shake off the tackle and get the first down. It was a great play."
Overall, White's production at four catches for 22 yards doesn't stand out. But that play was tremendously significant in working toward the win.
Alan Branch
If the NFL had its way, Alan Branch never would have been playing in this game. He was issued a four-game suspension earlier this week for failing a drug test. But Branch appealed, and the Patriots are happy he did.
With just over two minutes remaining in the first half, the Jets lined up for a 54-yard field goal attempt. Nick Folk had drilled a 51-yarder earlier in the game, so the risk of a midfield turnover was worthwhile for the home team. But Folk's low trajectory kick ended up getting swatted away by the big mitt of Branch, keeping crucial points off the board.
The Patriots didn't end up immediately turning that play into points of their own, but in a game that close, any play that prevents a score turns out to be a big one.
BONUS UPS
Receiver Julian Edelman gets credit for stepping up and putting the offense on his back in the second quarter, making a toe-tapping catch on the sideline to kick off the Patriots' first touchdown drive. Cornerback Malcolm Butler struggled in coverage, but he made a game-changing play to force a fumble from receiver Robby Anderson, and he recovered it himself, too. That turnover led to the aforementioned first touchdown drive for New England. LeGarrette Blount also gets a mention for making the play that iced the victory, bursting for a gain of 23 yards on a third-and-4 from the Jets' 26-yard line in the final minutes. The first down pickup allowed the Patriots to simply take a few knees to emerge victorious.
Tom Brady finds himself in between the ups and the downs. While he was unquestionably inaccurate on a number of passes (likely affected by his bad knee on his plant leg), it must be remembered that somewhere between 25-30 or so NFL teams would love to get a 30-for-50, 2 TD, 0 INT performance from a QB who nonchalantly led a game-winning drive in the final minutes.
FOUR DOWNS
Stephen Gostkowski
For the same reason Branch's blocked field goal proved to be an important play, Gostkowski's missed field goal in the final seconds of the first half proved equally significant.
The miss came on a 39-yard attempt from the right hash, and Gostkowski pulled it all the way across the goal posts to miss wide left. It was his fourth missed field goal of the year, which is already more than he missed in each of his past three seasons. And it comes a week after he missed a PAT, his third such miss of the year.
Gostkowski did respond well to the miss, as he made a 29-yarder and a 41-yarder in the second half. But the misses are adding up, and with the shadow of last year's missed PAT in Denver still hanging over every miss he makes, none go without being noticed.
Belichick's Clock Management
That Gostkowski miss, however, shouldn't be referenced without first noting the Patriots' botching of the clock to end the second quarter.
Chris Hogan was tackled at the Jets' 21-yard line with 32 seconds left in the quarter. The Patriots opted to not use their final timeout, instead heading to the line and running a play. Between the tackle of Hogan and the snap of the next play, 20 seconds elapsed off the clock. The play selection didn't help, either, as the Patriots went with a deep play and Brady threw to Mitchell in the end zone. When the ball hit the turf, just 6 seconds remained, and the Patriots had to attempt the 39-yard field goal.
After the game, Belichick indicated that the team liked what they had matched up against the Jets' personnel on the field. But he admitted that the management could have been better.
"We thought we could press it and take a shot there rather than huddle up and try to get organized. By the time we did it, we were kind of low on time there. Didn't really want to take the timeout and ice our own kicker," Belichick said, before adding, "I've got to do a little better in that situation."
The 20 seconds cost the Patriots at least one play -- or perhaps two -- to try to score or at least make it a shorter field goal attempt. And the decision to not use the timeout with 32 seconds remaining lands on this list because a lackadaisical approach to the ends of first halves has been a bit of a growing trend for the Patriots over the past two seasons.
Malcolm Butler
When you play cornerback, sometimes you're going to get beat. But on Sunday, Malcolm Butler got beat a few times more than he or anyone else associated with the Patriots would prefer.
On the Jets' very first play, Ryan Fitzpatrick locked on Brandon Marshall with Butler in coverage for a gain of 13 yards to set the tone.
He gave up a 40-yard reception to Quincy Enunwa, though he did everything humanly possible to try to break it up. (He tends to often be just one inch away from breaking up passes.) That one was understandable, but his work in the end zone on Marshall's touchdown was simply not good. Marshall leaped into the air to make a touchdown catch; Butler's feet never left the ground. That was the second touchdown reception that Butler allowed, too.
Balancing out Butler's day was a solid showing from Eric Rowe, thus preventing a bad day from being a terrible day for the defense. But that certainly wasn't Butler's best day, and it'll be interesting to see how he does against the same team a few weeks from now.
Rob Gronkowski
He entered the game with injury question marks surrounding him, as Rob Gronkowski tends to do from time to time. But he and the team decided he should play through his chest injury, and he did. For 10 minutes. Then he left with a back injury.
Whether he suffered the injury as a result of playing through the chest injury isn't known, but the bottom line is that the Patriots find themselves entering the month of December with Gronkowksi having been injured twice in a span of three weeks. That's not ideal.
You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.
