To Jets fans dismay, the Jets are showing a very consistent pattern of losing games. Three weeks — three losses. The Jets were handed another loss at the hands of their division arch-rivals, the New England Patriots, and they can only blame themselves. The Jets gave a lackluster performance with sporadic play from the offense yet again.

Even with the return of All-Pro C Nick Mangold, the Jets offense couldn’t get much of anything going against the league’s statistically worst defense. After all the talk this week about getting back to the ‘ground & pound’ that made the Jets the team we’ve come to know in the past two years, the first three drives ended with Sanchez dropping back on third and short.

Schottenheimer, who has been under a ton of scrutiny from the media recently — especially with the report surfacing that the Jets’ three big-name WRs complained to Rex Ryan about the play calling, didn’t help his case with some awful play calls throughout the game. The offense couldn’t do anything outside of one really good drive which featured Shonn Greene, 83 yards for the game, a season high.

The offense had seven, counting the seven three and outs and a horrendous three for 11 on third downs. Compare that with the Patriots going 7 for 14 on third downs and you can see why the Jets didn’t win this game. Mark Sanchez only had 70 yards through 3 quarters against the worst pass defense in the league.

This is twice in three games where Sanchez has been ineffective against bad secondaries. His numbers make his game appear a lot better than what was seen. He didn’t do a good job managing the team and it appears as if he’s regressed from the past two years which showed so much promise.

The defense, numbers aside, played a good game. They kept Tom Brady in check limiting him to a pedestrian 321 yards 1 touchdown and 1 interception. Wes Welker coming in as the league’s leading receiver had 124 yards, but 73 of those came on one play where Eric Smith bit badly on a play action fake leaving the field wide open over the top.

Revis was on him for most of the game so he was out of commission for the majority of the game. However, as everyone knows, defenses will wear down the longer they’re on the field and such was the case with the Jets who also surrendered 136 yards to BenJarvus Green-Ellis.

A big chunk of those yards came on a late game sustaining drive for the Patriots in which the Jets defense just couldn’t get off the field. A lot of miscommunications, some poor tackling and 8 penalties added to the Jets demise in Foxboro. Again the lone bright spot was Joe McKnight who’s proving he’s the real deal in the return game.

He had another 88 yard return and was solid in the return game all day. The Jets finish 0-3 on their road trip and return home to face the winless Dolphins on Monday night. While the Dolphins haven’t won this won’t be an easy win for the Jets as divisional games combined with their recent poor play doesn’t guarantee anything.

While this recent skid doesn’t bode well, the season isn’t lost quite yet, but one thing’s for sure if the Jets don’t turn it around quickly they won’t be making the playoffs much less the Super Bowl like Ryan so boldly predicted at the beginning of the season.

Image Courtesy of  http://www.facebook.com/newenglandpatriots

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About the author

Jonathan Ellish
My name is Jonathan Ellish and I'm a recent graduate of URI. I'm a sports fanatic and love New York sports especially. I extensively follow the Jets, Mets, and Knicks.

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