Jets handed another bogus "victory"

The NFL—or the fates—must love the New York Jets and Geno Smith, who the Jets coaching staff apparently thought was only safe to allow just one pass attempt in overtime. The Jets were once more permitted to escape with yet another travesty of a “win,” 30-27, over the New England Patriots. Like the incomprehensible call in Tampa Bay that erased a “rookie” mistake by Smith—who nearly ran out the clock scrambling instead of throwing the ball away—into a 15-yard “shoving” penalty that would have turned a desperation heave into a manageable game-winning field goal as time expired, and give the Jets an impossibly ridiculous victory. And now against the Patriots, despite Smith being largely a non-factor after half time—completing only 7 of 18 passes for 74 yards—somehow the Jets pulled out an impossible win. 

But again not without another controversial penalty, which turned a missed 56-yard field goal attempt and good field position for the Patriots into an easy game-winning field goal for the Jets. Sure, a few people will defend the refs for putting “player safety” ahead of common sense, but most of the comments I have read seem to agree that the penalty against rookie defensive tackle Chris Jones—“unsportsmanlike conduct” for advancing a teammate forward in an attempt to block a kick—was one of those “new rules” that always seem to be arbitrarily applied, and calling it this time when it would mean allowing the Jets another undeserved opportunity for a bogus victory is particularly grating. The Jets should be by all rights 1-6; instead they are somehow 4-3. Is the “fix” in?

However, I’m not going to let the Tom Brady and the Patriots off the hook. Frankly, Brady’s whiny act is growing stale. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he doesn’t have any receivers; I’ve heard that too. But I don’t care what the television commentators say; you have to be able to “throw” receivers open too, like Aaron Rodgers can do. And Brady can’t seem to throw the ball further than 15 yards downfield without first calling home to make sure it is alright. Rob Gronkowski’s supposedly was the best player on the practice field; from what I could see against the Jets, he still is. Sure he caught eight passes, but he was targeted 17 times, suggesting that there was no actual improvement with him on the field. “Gronk” also made a critical mistake when in the fourth quarter the Patriots were poised to retake the lead after Brandon Bolden made a catch-and-run to the Jets 3 yard line, but was nullified by a pass interference call on Gronkowski away from the ball. 

This was a frustrating game to watch, because as poorly as Patriots played, the Jets just looked like a team that was hanging around and didn’t belong. You expected at any moment that Brady and company would stop kidding around and stop this nonsense, but it never happened. Perhaps in the end fate (or the officials) decided that it had enough of the games and loaded the dice in favor of the Jets—again.