Patriots show signs of life at expense of dysfunctional Jets originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

Slide it over, iron bowl. Jets-Patriots II in 2024 will be remembered as The Irony Bowl.

In a game between a team at the bottom of the Pit of Despair and another rapidly sliding down the misery-soaked sides of it, the strangeness ran deep.

On the Patriots side, there was Jacoby Brissett, who was benched three weeks ago largely due to a lack of aggressiveness (which the team kind of asked him to do) and who made great throws in crunch time.

He hit enough of them to give Rhamondre Stevenson a dramatic touchdown just inches away. That result was the opposite of the play that essentially sealed Brissett's fate: Ja'Lynn Polk's failed game-ending toe tap in the back of the end zone against the Dolphins.

Polk, a self-proclaimed owner of the “best hands in the league” despite having a cartoonish penchant for drops, did not play Sunday because of an injury. But the cavalcade of drops from the remaining recipients continued with the same “Are you me?!?!” Fashion.

Major offender Kayshon Boutte, who bragged last week that he hadn't had a drop all year and didn't have to contact the coaching staff to request the ball, made up for two stunning drops with the catch of the day to set up the game – winning touchdown.

What's most glaring is that the Patriots – who had been the “real” team of the Dolphins, 49ers and Jaguars in recent weeks – ended up losing to a Jets team that needed to do everything right more than anyone else.

Imagine you are the Jets. In recent weeks, they tried to light the fire by firing the head coach, trading him for one of the best receivers in the league, trying to stop pass rusher Haason Reddick, and then they saw their promising season basically collapse ended by a… A team famously in the midst of a rebuild that was going so poorly that the head coach had called them “soft” a week earlier.

The Patriots probably responded as well as they physically could, and Jets interim coach Jeff Ulbrich sounded like an emo teenager in his postgame presser.

“This is a moment of darkness and we understand that the outside world will now be very loud,” he said.

Rodgers took up the riff at his post-match podium, adding: “I was in the dark. You have to go in there and make peace with it.”

Pooh.

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Nothing is “fixed” for the Patriots. But they stopped the bleeding a little. And despite the receivers' glaring inability to catch…the…football, there are stealthy, incremental improvements where progress can be seen.

Last time out, the Jets happened to notice that New England, with its inexperienced offensive line, had no chance of winning blitzers. They rolled up seven sacks and outscored Brissett all night in a not-so-close 24-3 win. There were two sacks on Sunday. The group consisting of (left to right) Vederian Lowe, Michael Jordan, Ben Brown, Michael Onwenu and Demontrey Jacobs held their own against a highly talented Jets front.

Defensive? Given the way Garrett Wilson set up Marcus Jones for five catches for 113 yards and some of the big runs for running back Breece Hall, stay away from popping the corks. And the Jets were ridiculous all day for their lack of cohesion.

But with a safety troika of Marte Mapu, Jaylinn Hawkins and Dell Pettus (Kyle Dugger was a no-go due to an ankle injury), Rodgers was limited to 17 of 28 for 233 yards. In the first meeting, Rodgers hit 15-for-20 for 170 points in the first half, taking what he wanted, whenever he wanted.

So credit goes to embattled defensive coordinator Demarcus Covington for the tweaks and to the players who understood the message Mayo was sending and responded to it rather than getting annoyed by it.

Defensive lineman Keion White said after the game, “Someone calls you out, as a guy you can't be completely sensitive about it…That's just a testament to his coaching and how receptive we are to him…We didn't get defensive.” .. We took it as a challenge.”

It's a deep irony – to get back to the topic – that the all-in Jets have the same record as the “bridge year” Patriots at 2-6.

Losing to a team with a collection of nameless offensive linemen that their studded defense couldn't solve. A team that had to go to its backup quarterback after Drake Maye suffered a concussion. A team without four of their most important defensive players. A team whose wideouts literally dropped almost as many passes as they caught combined.

A team where – before Sunday – every opponent was on the schedule and hoped for a chance to win.

I don't think anyone will mistake this Patriots win as a sign of great health. They're not out of the woods yet. But at the moment the patient has stabilized.