Week 6 Overreactions

Ahh, the smell of fall. October is in full swing and we’re starting to see the truth about what our teams are made of. So let’s get right after it…

In the basement, covered in crumbs and sticky stuff left over from last night’s drunken snack, we find the New York Jets. The Jets “stayed close” to the Broncos and that counts as a victory to their fans. All in all the Jets didn’t play as poorly as most expected heading into this game, but the result was what everyone in America (including everyone in the Jets locker room) expected- a loss. It seems to me that the guys on the Jets that should care just don’t. It starts with the top, Woody Johnson doesn’t really care if the team wins; he got a new stadium and the sponsorship dollars that come with that. John Idzik seems to not care much; he’ll have a job next year regardless. Rex Ryan doesn’t seem to care; if this team were to win then he’d have to stay and coach them next year, something that he is obviously not willing to do. And Geno Smith doesn’t seem to care; if he did he might learn how to tell time. Settle in Jet fans, looks like a top 5 draft pick and Jameis Winston next year.

Next up we have to welcome the newest NFL owner into the fold with a thunderous round of applause before the game and a furious whimper during it. The Bills made sure that it was made abundantly clear to new owners Kim and Terry Pegula that they bought the Bills so big wins should not be expected. Now I’ve been saying this forever if the Bills want to beat the Patriots they should not treat the game like it’s the Super Bowl, with their history it would be much wiser to treat it like an AFC Championship. The Bills played well in the first half, but then CJ Spiller went all Clemson with about a minute left before halftime, gifting the Pats a field goal thus ensuring another in the long line of Bills losses to the Pats. Lastly, Duke Williams played a game that usually will end a guy’s career, but this is the Bills so I bet he starts next week.

Now we move on to the team that should’ve, could’ve, would’ve won if it wasn’t for the unfortunate fact that they are the Miami Dolphins. The Fins got down early but showed some real heart coming back to make it a game vs. Plastic Joe’s old team. But alas, it was not in the cards for Old Joe to be carried off the field atop the shoulders of his team. For the Fins fell victim to their own trickery, with under 30 seconds left in the game and clinging to a slim four point lead Aaron Rodgers took a page out of the Dan Marino playbook and ran the fake spike play to perfection, setting the Packers up with first and goal inside the five with six seconds left. Then it was merely a matter of snapping the ball, for Philip Wheeler had no shot of even attempting to defend the pass that ended up snatching victory from the hapless Fins. The Fins and their fans spent all of last week rejoicing about how they were going to get to move into the penthouse and take the division title away from the Pats at long last; now they are the proud owners of a losing record and have a better shot of fighting the Jets for last place than they do of finishing first.

And like they have been so many weeks in the past and like they will be for so many more weeks into the future, we have the Pats in first place. Tom Brady really needed a game against the Bills to get his confidence up. Brady showed us that when matched up against a hapless opponent he is still elite, Brady shredded the Bills secondary the tune of 361 yards and 4 TDs. Rob Gronkowski returned to his hometown and showed us that he is slowly returning to form. Gronk made more than one Bill look like a tackling dummy as they attempted to bring down the giant. Gronk was so returned to form that his post-game interview included him praising Brady for “plying a good job,” and declaring the “the linemen are the ones who should be getting laid tonight.” The Pats offense is starting to take shape, just imagine if Bill used the actual pre-season as the pre-season and not the first four games to the regular season, this team could have been 16-0.