The J-E-T-S Suck

If you're a Jets fan waking up this morning, do you still feel good about your team? Seriously, this is the team that everyone picked to be the new leader of the AFC East after Tom Brady was knocked out for the year and you play like that? That was some ugly football on display in nearly every facet of the game, especially considering all the talk leading up to the game. When all is said and done this year, I think the Jets will be exactly what we thought they'd be: a team that was 4-12 last year who added an aging hall of famer as their quarterback. In other words, look for another losing season out of the Jets.

Anyway, here are just a few of my thoughts while I ponder if the Jets would have been better off keeping Chad Pennington over Brett Favre.

• There was never a moment in this game where I felt like the Patriots were in danger of losing. The Jets looked like a team that thought they should win the game just because they were favored. The blame on that one has to fall on Eric Mangini, the Jets head coach, for not getting his team fired up.

• On the flip side, Bill Belichick has his team ready to go on offense, defense and special teams from the start of the game.

• The defense for the Patriots played extremly well. Richard Seymour was in on a lot of pass rushes, as was Tedy Bruschi, and Favre was under constant pressure. Once again, the weak link was Rodney HGHarrison who got burned on the only Jets touchdown. On the replay, you can see HGHarriosn faking a pass interference call as the Jets reciever breaks free. Any ball thrown HGHarrison's way scares me.

• I don't recall ever seeing a sack go for a 20 yard loss like the play where Adalius Thomas sacked Favre. That was a pretty spectacular play to take down both Favre and the other Jets defender together.

• Randy Moss wasn't nearly as involved as I thought he'd be and that has me a little concerned, as does the dropped ball in the fourth quarter. Yes, I realize Matt Cassel underthrew the ball but it still hit Moss right between the numbers. If the Patriots want to continue winning, Moss needs to be more involved, and I think he will have some monster games in the next few weeks. This was Moss after the game: "The New England Patriots are 2 and 0. So, all you haters, keep hating. We're coming."

• What happened to Laurence Maroney? He only ran eight times for 16 yards. With some quick math, I figured out that's an average of only two yards a run. Lamont Jordan seems to have taken the starting running back job from Maroney by rushing 11 times for 62 yards. More importanly, I never saw Jordan run into any of his own guys.

• Cassel did a good job protecting the ball and pretty much did what people thought he would do. He finished 16 for 23 for 165 yards. Even though he had no touchdowns, he also didn't have any interceptions.

• Can you imagine if Brady were healthy and played in this game? What would the score have been? 52-10? 60-10? If you're Mangini this morning do you wake up wondering if you'll ever be able to beat the Patriots? I sort of think that Brady could have still played this game with a torn ACL and MCL and won based on how pathetic the Jets looked.

• Here's an interesting note about the salary of Favre: through the first two weeks of the season, Favre has earned $1.41 million in base salary. For the entire 2008-2009 season, Matt Cassel, Matt Gutierrez and Kevin O'Connell will earn $1.16 million in combined base salary. And now that I've thought about it, I think I would rather have Chad Pennington than Favre if I were a Jets fan (thank goodness I'm not because that team is pathetic). The Jets, for the most part, are a young team. Having Favre play quarterback for a year or two is only going to impede the development of another young quarterback. Favre will be long gone when this team is ready to seriously compete for the AFC title and at that point, they may be left with no real options at QB.

• Was the final score of the game a reflection of the Jets being over rated or the Patriots being under rated? I think the Patriots will use the under rated card for the rest of the year to try to get themselves fired up but I also feel like the Jets are way over rated.

• Did you catch the footage of Bob Kraft towards the end of the game? Was he wearing an all white shirt? Apparently his only blue shirt with the white collar must have been at the dry cleaners.

• Up next for the undefeated Patriots are the hapless Miami Dolphins. If you thought the Jets played poorly yesterday, just wait until you see the Dolphins next week. We may actually see Matt Gutierrez come in the game to run out the clock.

Stay tuned for NFL Week 3 Picks Wednesday and my Pats-Dolphins preview Friday or Saturday. I may even throw in a Red Sox update at some point as they march towards repeating as World Champions.