The Official Thirsty Thursday Football Extravaganza

Post #1 » by **Basketball Jesus** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 9:29 pm

(Sorry for the scatterbrained short post, I’m typing while working. Hooray multitasking!)

When the schedules were released back in April, I found it rather curious that the NFL Network would want to showcase such an insignificant game between prince/pauper rivals on the NFL Network. Thinking the Pats would roll into Week 11 with the division already won, facing a depleted and terrible Jets team with nothing to win…didn’t sound like the kind of game people would want to miss The Office over. Then the Jets go out and get Our Lord and Savior Brett Favre, Tom Brady’s knee explodes, Favre and Cassel intercept and scramble (respectively) their way to the top of the division, tied at 6-3, and suddenly, this game is shaping up to be one of the best of Week 11.

The NFL works in mysterious ways. Not entirely sure Goodell didn’t plan it to happen this way. That guy scares me.

Surprisingly enough, the Jets have been a pretty good football team, and it has less to do with Jesus H. Favre than the defense. According to Football Outsiders’ advanced metric DVOA, the Jets’ defense has been their strong point, ranking 11th in the league. If we dig a little deeper, we see that the Jets have been dominant against the run, ranking 7th in defensive rushing DVOA. Their passing defense is nearly as dominant, ranking 11th in the league.

This suggests the Patriots might have a good deal of trouble during Thursday’s game. Since Cassel has been under center, the Patriots have abandoned any semblance of a deep game, instead favoring the grinding-out method of short passes coupled with up-the-gut running plays. However, if you scroll towards the bottom of the page, you will see the Jets rank 31st in the league in defending the tight end and, if you look here, their defensive line’s weakness is runs up the middle. This bodes well for the Patriots, who are sixth in the league when it comes to running between the guards. Bad news is neither Ben Watson nor David Thomas are particularly good.

What you should expect to see is the Patriots come out extremely conservative in their first few drives, with plenty of draws up the middle, to tire out Kris Jenkins with Cassel working over the vertically-challenged Darelle Revis by throwing a ton of outs to Randy Moss.

Post #2 » by **Celtics_Champs** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 7:55 pm

Pumped.

Thats all I have to say right now.

greenbeans · Post #3 » by **greenbeans** » Fri Nov 14, 2008 5:21 pm

about this game: ugh, how gross. what a mess. lets just hope these back to back losses to our 2 main rivals get this team to magically turn it around.

one thing that really made me sick about last night was goddamn nfl network. I realize Troy wasn't the biggest star, but atleast give the guy 30sec on tv.