The guy
who’s owned the Jets throughout his storied 10-year career once again
is at the helm, prepared to bring more misery to a franchise that has
watched its division rival from the north evolve into one of the NFL’s
premier teams.
Tom Brady made it official Monday against Buffalo,
fully returning from the knee injury that sidelined him for all but a
few minutes of action in the Patriots‘ 2008
campaign. But there’s nothing like going up against the Jets, the team
Brady has tormented. He’s 12-2 as a starter against them, a record
bettered only by his 14 career victories against the Bills — the very
squad that saw him erase an 11-point deficit with a pair of touchdown
passes in a 76-second span during the final 2:06 at Gillette Stadium.
Brady’s
voice rose with enthusiasm the other day as he spoke about the AFC
East’s version of the Hatfields and McCoys, a rivalry that quickly
became one of the league’s most heated.
“It’s pretty exciting,”
said Brady, whose career as a starter came thanks in large part to a
hit by former Jets linebacker Mo Lewis in the Jets’ 10-3 win in
Foxborough on Sept. 23, 2001, that left Drew Bledsoe with internal
bleeding.
“I remember in 2000, my rookie year, we played the Jets
on ‘Monday Night Football’ at the Meadowlands and it was an incredible
game. We ended up losing the game, unfortunately. But there’s been so
much carry-over between the players and the coaches. There’s been a lot
of history in the last nine years that I’ve been a part of personally,
and it goes back much longer than that, obviously. So it’s a great
rivalry.”
Brady, 32, has been living the storybook life. There’s
the three Super Bowl rings and the pair of Super Bowl MVPs. Many
consider him the premier quarterback in the game, creating a few
whispers that he could turn out to be the NFL’s best signal-caller ever.
Oh,
yeah, he’s married to Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen, and they
are expecting a child in December, right around the time Brady probably
will be making a push for a playoff bid with his teammates.
Exactly
a year ago, though, Brady’s world was upside down, and it pains him to
describe what it was like as he rehabbed from the season-ending left
knee injury that occurred in the 2008 opener against the Chiefs.
The
hit by safety Bernard Pollard that tore Brady’s anterior cruciate and
medial collateral ligaments snapped his incredible streak of 111
straight starts, which ranks fourth all-time in the league.
“Well,
you know, things happen,” Brady said. “They come up over the course of
a career and I’ve really moved on from it. So I’m just excited to be
out there leading our team and being back doing stuff that I really
enjoy doing.”
After a slow start Monday, Brady caught fire in the second half against the Bills, leading the Patriots
back from a late 24-13 deficit. He connected on 11 of 13 attempts for
112 yards and two touchdowns on their final two drives, tying his
career high in completions with 39.
“He’s real tough,” Jets
defensive end Shaun Ellis said. “At any given moment, he can just turn
into — I am not going to say God, but something similar, like a
football superhero. He can win the game for you.”
No one needs to
tell the Jets that. He’s outright owned them, throwing for 3,052 yards
with 17 touchdowns and only six interceptions in 15 games.
“I
have a lot of respect for the Jets,” Brady said. “They always play
hard. They have some really dynamic players. In order to beat these
guys — we have had a lot of close games — you have to play great the
whole way through because they really are a challenging team. They
challenge you in a lot of different ways, and hopefully we are up for
the challenge.”
Jets aim to break through at home against Patriots
They’ve been dominated, essentially rendered second-class citizens in their own home.
When the Jets have hopped back in their luxury cars and motored out of the Giants Stadium parking lot the last eight times they’ve faced the Patriots at the Meadowlands, they’ve done so with the same glum feeling. New England has played as if it owns the deed to the property, seemingly doing almost everything but planting a flag with the franchise’s logo at midfield.
So the Jets are dead-set on halting their eight-game home slide against their archrivals on Sunday, ready to collect their first home victory over the Patriots since a 20-19 win in Week 2 of the 2000 season. Apparently eight really is enough.
“That’s just not acceptable. It isn’t,” nose tackle Kris Jenkins said. “There’s not even a conversation for that. This is our home. But that’s why everybody is geared up the way they are. We are here to rectify that situation.”
Said cornerback Darrelle Revis: “They have won eight straight games at our place, and that’s kind of embarrassing.”
Perhaps few of those losses were as embarrassing as last year’s home opener (Week 2), when the Patriots limped in on the heels of Tom Brady’s season-ending knee injury and spoiled Brett Favre’s home debut. Matt Cassel looked a bit Brady-esque that day in his first career start, effectively managing the offense by completing 16 of 23 attempts for 165 yards in the Jets’ uninspiring 19-10 loss.
Leon Washington had forgotten that it was Cassel’s coming-out party of sorts, probably with good reason. There was a profound sense of disappointment after that one, especially after the Jets opened a week earlier with a 20-14 win in Miami.
“Only thing I remember is I haven’t beaten these guys at home since I’ve been here,” the running back/kick returner said. “So it’s time for that to stop. That has to stop now. We can’t let these guys keep coming into our place and beating us here. So this will be a great game. I’m excited. This is what you come into the league for.”
The Jets certainly have made it clear how big this game is. There’s been a ton of chatter coming from their end, ranging from Sunday’s game feeling somewhat like a Super Bowl to wanting to go out there and “embarrass” the Patriots.
It all fell right into line with Rex Ryan’s June comment that he “never came here to kiss Bill Belichick’s rings,” adding yet another bit of spice to a flavorful matchup that brings out a flurry of emotion on both sides.
“I’m liking the trash-talking,” Jenkins said. “I’m liking what a lot of guys are saying back and forth. I really think that it’s great because it’s going to make two teams come out and play at their best, and we really get to see how we measure up.”
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