My Wife, friend, teenage son of other friends and I went to the New Meadowlands Stadium Monday night fresh off of HBO’s Hard Knocks and were ready for the football season to commence with a hard fought victory over Ray Lewis and the Baltimore Ravens. Unfortunately the hard fought victory didn’t happen and in fact it was a very tough 10-9 loss. As the 4th quarter progressed our friend’s son said “I hope they don’t lose by 1 point” and he called it. We had great seats in the fifth row of the 200s in the corner of the end zone with the Jets bench across the field. One glaring stat I read on the huge beautiful screens was 10 Jet penalties for 100 yards and 85 yards total offense in the first half. That stat told the story of the game. Antonio Cromartie and Kyle Wilson were burned numerous times in the secondary and were responsible for most of the penalties. Every time the Jets had the Ravens pinned it seemed a defensive penalty would give them life. The worst play was a 3rd and forever (I think 3rd and 28 yards to go) and a defensive pass interference that looked mighty questionable was called. That gave the Ravens the ball on the 1-yard line and goal to go with a new fresh set of downs. It also looked like the ball was uncatchable as well. The Ravens scored and took the lead for good. That came off a Shonn Greene fumble that banished him to the bench. It was a waste as the Cromartie interception amounted to no points for the Jets. The Jets did not call any play action passes on first down and in fact didn’t call much of anything on first down except for running plays. Mark Sanchez could not get rid of the ball as wasn’t taking deep drops and he had Ravens in his face all night. Running between the tackles on the Ravens is a difficult way to go. The real killer was watching Kris Jenkins go down after six plays! I was yelling “IS THAT JENKINS” and it was. I saw all the players except #77 standing around after he went down. He tore the same ACL and that’s a real shame as his season’s over. My Wife calls Jenkins The Human Truck and we will miss him. After that injury I predicted that the Ravens would begin running up the middle and Ray Rice (former star running back from Rutgers) did just that. On their last possession Sanchez called his final timeout rather than getting to the line quickly and spiking the ball to stop the clock. That meant they could not throw in the middle of the field. The last play was a pass that went to tight end Dustin Keller just short of the first down marker on a confusing play where the wide receivers had to cross to the other side of the field before the snap. The kicking game was excellent along with the defense and special teams. All in all we had fun at the game. The kickoff was delayed for about 25 minutes due to lightning in the area. After the rain moved out the players warmed up and we were allowed to enter our seats. The Jets have a very tough battle against the hated New England Patriots (aka Cheaters) this Sunday at the New Meadowlands Stadium. They need a win this weekend. I took the picture from our seats.
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