Jets Beatdown Preview

Up next for the 13-0 Patriots are Eric Mangina and the lowly Jets, who come in at a dismal 3-10, having beaten only the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Dolphins twice. As we all know, Mangina is the reason the Patriots are a completely different football team this year. He called them out on their spying during the first regular season game this year and the Pats have used it as motivation all year. This game could get very ugly and I wouldn't expect their to be any hugging at the end.

Last year, the Jets were 10-6 and made the playoffs, which ended up being a loss to the Patriots. I looked at their schedule last year and they benefited from a relatively easy schedule and the only decent teams they beat all year were the Titans and Patriots. This year, they've really only beaten the Steelers and the debate is still out on them as far as being a good team. Basically, the Jets suck and the only thing that could possibly help them pull this game out is a major snowstorm. People have been saying all year that it would take an act of God to beat the Patriots this year and the storm headed this way is picking up intensity as I type. It looks like we could get anywhere from 1-18 inches of snow or a massive amount of rain. Either way, you may want to start trying to scalp your ticket if you're planning on going to the game.

The Jets' offense is averaging just 18.4 points per game and their defense ranks 28th in the NFL in total yards allowed (350.2 per game) and 30th in rushing yards allowed (141.9). Quite frankly, I was surprised that they score that many points but those stats aren't going to win you many games outside of playing the lowly Dolphins. Their run defense pretty much sucks but, then again, the Patriots don't have much of a running game. I don't even know if we've run for a total of 141 yards all year.

I think that Kellen Clemens is their starting quarterback but I could be wrong. Either way, it doesn't matter because Chad Pennington has no confidence right now and Michael Vick has a better chance of being a starting QB in the NFL before Pennington has another opportunity. Clemens has a 61.1 QB rating, completes 52 percent of his passes and has thrown 4 TDs versus 9 INTs. He's not very good. By comparison, Pennington has an 87.5 QB rating and has thrown for 9 TDs versus 7 INTs. He completes 67 percent of his passes. He's not very good either but I don't know why the Jets fans seem to hate him when Clemens isn't any better and could, quite possibly, be worse. Typical Jets fans for you, though.

Earlier in the week, I looked up the largest margin of victory in the NFL and here's what I came up with:

In 1940, the Chicago Bears demolished Washington 73-0 in the most lopsided game in NFL history. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the most lopsided score since the NFL-AFL merger in 1970 was a 59-0 victory by the Los Angeles Rams over Atlanta (I think they've sucked forever) on December 4, 1976. More recently, Green Bay walloped New Orleans 52-3 on October 9, 2005. And it looks like New England put a major hurting on the Jets back on September 9, 1979 when they won 56-3. If not for a looming snowstorm, I might pick the Patriots to put up another 56 points.

The Pats defense put on a good show last week against the Steelers and I'll be interested to see if they show up two weeks in a row, especially Rodney HGHarrison if he's done eating his double sausage pizza.

Unfortunately, if the weather conditions are poor, this game could easily come down to running the ball and that scares me. The Jets have Thomas Jones as their running back and he has rushed for 944 yards this year but only has one TD. Surprisingly, Lawrence Maroney has rushed for 529 yards this year and two TDs. I don't remember either of his TDs. I also found out that his long rush for the year is 19 yards, which is also Tom Brady's long run for the year. I almost fainted when I saw that one. It's never a good sign when your slow-as-molasses white QB is tied with your starting running back for the longest run of the year. Maroney just doesn't seem to be the same back since Sam Morris went down for the year and I'm not sure why. I still trust Brady throwing short slants in the snow/sleet/freezing rain as opposed to Maroney dancing around behind the line of scrimmage trying to clear his visor so that he can find one of his own guys to run into.

And I still wouldn't put it past Brady and Belicheat to keep throwing deep to Moss/Welker/Stallworth even if it is snowing.

So, with the snowstorm coming and the game conditions looking like they could be pretty bad, I'm going with a 24-6 Pats W. If by chance the storm passes and the conditions are clear, I'm going with a 56-13 rout by the Pats, with the Patriots scoring the clinching TD on a 30 yard pass from Brady to Moss as time expires with Belicheat declaring that the offense just needed a little more practice on the two minute drill and that they were not intentionally running up the score.