From Mike Reiss, on the first half of the last matchup. I know he's a NE guy, but he's pretty fair... There are a couple other observations in here besides the ones I posted. http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/new-england-patriots/post?id=4691470 Some notes to keep in mind from the Dec. 6 matchup between the Patriots and Jets, after reviewing the TV tape from the first half of the game, as there could be carry-over into Sunday's playoff contest: Revis mostly on Welker early. The Jets had cornerback Darrelle Revis covering Wes Welker on the majority of snaps. One way the Patriots countered that was lining Welker up in the offensive backfield, or simply not lining up a receiver to Revis' side of the field (Revis didn't always flip sides in those instances). When Welker wasn’t in the game, the Jets had Revis on Brandon Tate, leaving Antonio Cromartie on Deion Branch. Over the course of the game, Branch won that matchup decisively. Jets went with up-tempo approach early. Although their trademark is ground-and-pound, the Jets opened this game in a lot of three-wide sets, with Mark Sanchez in the shotgun in a no-huddle type attack. That put the game in Sanchez’s hands. Do they do it again or try to establish the ground-and-pound approach early? Hard to imagine they'd come out with the same approach. They had success running the ball against the Patriots' 3-4 defense -- and had two solid runs against the sub defense in the Week 2 matchup between the teams -- but because they fell behind so early in a poorly-played first quarter, they couldn't stick with it consistently. Big change for Pats on defense at DE. When the Patriots were in their 3-4 alignment, Ron Brace played left defensive end, with Wilfork at nose tackle and Gerard Warren at right defensive end. Brace is now on season-ending injured reserve. One of the big questions for the Patriots is who fills that role in the 3-4 alignment. The Patriots probably want to keep Wilfork on the nose against tough center Nick Mangold, but rookie Kyle Love isn’t a natural 5-technique end.
The last note on the DL is going to be a concern. With Wilfork, Warren, and Brace you had a line that was really big and could stop the run pretty effectively. Now, with Brace out of there it's going to be interesting to see if Wilfork in fact does move to end. I think he'll be moved around from end to nose based on scheme and situations. This is irrelevant if the Patriots get on top early and the Jets scrap the run for the pass.
Yup, Wright is IR'd. Dude still couldn't look at TV over 2 months after getting concussed. He might be all done. What the above also says is that Wright didn't play in the last NY/NE game.
