Week 18It's impossible not to be pleased about the Jets victory on the road against Peyton Manning's Colts. LaDainian Tomlinson and Shonn Greene were both excellent, allowing the Jets to score touchdowns on two long second half drives. Braylon Edwards had another strong performance. Darrelle Revis shut down Reggie Wayne, while Brodney Poole and Eric Smith were all around the ball. On special teams, Antonio Cromartie was fantastic filling in for Brad Smith, and Nick Folk kicked the winning field goal.
There were some negatives last night. The Jets' offense simply left way too many potential points on the field during the first half tonight - inexplicably going into halftime scoreless. Mark Sanchez missed a number of open receivers and threw a terrible INT. Santonio Holmes dropped a key 3rd down pass. Cromartie gave up the long TD pass to Pierre Garcon and overall was mediocre against Garcon. (With the Jets' win, the third round pick they gave up for Cromartie has become a second rounder.) Steve Weatherford's punts kept going into the end zone for touchbacks - though the fault was not always with Weatherford.
In the end, the game came down to the final seconds. Colts head coach Jim Caldwell called one of the dumbest timeouts in NFL history. Instead of a 50+ yard field goal that Folk would have probably missed, the Jets had a chance to move further downfield. And unlike the 2004 Jets vs. the Steelers, who settled for a long field goal attempt that Doug Brien missed as time expired in the 4th quarter, the 2010 Jets allowed Sanchez to find Edwards for 18 more yards, making Folk's kick a short one.
Last night's performance will not be nearly good enough against the Patriots, who have far more talent than the injury depleted Colts. As for Sanchez, Jets fans must hope that his inaccuracy last night was just a case of him having a bad game, not - as was the case with Chad Pennington - a shoulder injury worse than disclosed.
posted on 1/09/2011
