obviously the sting of the loss has yet to subside but reflecting on the game now has me thinking that might have been the most exciting half of football i've ever had the pleasure of watching.. The anticipation, excitement, & nervousness i felt going into the game created a combination of emotions that exploded upon david harris sacking manning on that opening 3rd down... The fact that the jets had an opening 3 & out against the colts, the team that everyone expected to light us up ( which they eventually did) for a minute genuinely had me believing that rex had devised a clever enough scheme to SHUT OUT the colts of all things lol. The rollercoaster that ensued after was exhilirating; from the sinking feeling of Feely missing that opening kick despite all of Jet nation truly expecting him to nail it to the pure jubilation of watching edwards run down the bomb traveling in slow motion, the goal line stand on the one yard line, & finally Pace exploding through the line to destroy the running back and force that fumble. Obviously the jets crashed & burned & rather quickly in the second half, but lets try and pretend it never happened. As i prepare to submit this thread im getting flashbacks of Manning's bomb to Collie over the middle & that midget coleman flailing helplessly at the ball >=\ Nonetheless, i dont think i've ever yelled or tackled my brother as many times as i did in that first half
I reigned in my celebrating in the first half because I knew that there was a ton of football to be played and that it was going to be real tough to shut Manning down the entire game. If we had gotten a TD instead of a FG after Leonhard's fumble recovery and then stopped the Colts the next drive I believe we would have held on. 2 big IF's but sometimes games are won or lost through subtle changes in momentum.
Even when we were up 17-6, I said to myself: "Self - that isn't enough points. They need to put up more..."
The difference to me, were the injuries. Some may call me a whiner, sore loser, whatever. I don't give a s***. The fact is, this second-half defense looked nothing like the one we saw in the first 28 minutes of the game. In the first 28 minutes, guys were roaming all over the place pre-snap, you had no f***ing idea who was coming and who wasn't. Even the D-line was adjusting one or two times before the snap. We were splitting protection to create blitzing gaps, and jamming guys at the line like we were f***kin' possessed. The proof was on Manning's face after he made that first TD pass; the look of someone who had been frustrated all game, and was angrily satisfied he finally broke out of the hell we kept him in up to that point. Then. Second half defense. Static. Almost no pre-snap movement. We stopped blitzing, for obvious reasons, and went straight into our man-to-man, hope-and-pray mode. Not anyone's fault, IMO, just the way it played out. Losing Greene, of course, killed the other half of our game plan. But, yes, you're absolutely right. The bar I was at was going nuts right up until that score before the half. I think I spilled about $25 worth of beer from knocking into the pub table after every big play.
It was the best half of football that I have ever experienced. Yes there were ups and downs, but I have never been so excited when we scored in my life.
when will people understand that 11 pts against Peyton Manning is like being up by 3 on a division opponent. You need 10 more pts.
We should've gone for the jugular when we had teh chances. I really think taht we shoudl've taken more advantage of the B. Edwards vs some noob rook matchup, but oh well, I think we had too much faith in our defense unfortunately.
