Watched ALL the Pats coverage last night and need a caffeine-free kick? NFL Game center has last night's game recap with a 3-minute highlight reel sure to fire you up.
The New England Patriots team website gives the official word on post-game news, quotes, and analysis.
POST-GAME ARTICLES AND ANALYSIS, all highly enjoyable, abound this morning especially as reports of the Patriots demise seem to have been greatly exaggerated.
The Boston Globe has Christopher Gasper commenting that it was Favre who blinked under pressure, not the cool and confident Cassel.
- Bob Ryan concludes "the story on this day was that the Patriots were the better football team. All those coronation plans for the Jets will have to be put on hold." Also, I have to include Ryan's outstanding Sunday pre-game "schadenfreude" column. A must-read.
- Mike Reiss's blog offers his ups and downs for the game, a few videos, some interviews with both Patriots and Jets...it's all good.
- Reiss's column praises how "Cassel aced the challenge, focusing on short and intermediate passes and finishing 16 of 23 for 165 yards, with no touchdowns, and no interceptions. Just like last week against the Chiefs, the zero interceptions was huge."
Steve Buckley's piece, "Who's overrated now?" makes the trip over to The Herald worthwhile. Buckley discusses the Jets and their fans week-long visit to the optimism buffet:
They were going to beat the Patriots - beat ’em badly - and, in the end, yesterday’s game was going to have the Very Important Football Experts facing yet new challenges as they dreamed up new superlatives for Brett Favre.
God, how it must bite to be Jets fans right now. They had freakin’ Brett Favre as their quarterback. The Pats had Rudy. Yet when it was over, it was Cassel who stood before the cameras and the microphones with a big ol’ smile on his yap, so comfortable in his shoes he was able to joke about his inexperience by saying, “It was my first start since, what, seventh grade?”
- Buckley also offers his post-game analysis, with his best and worst feature.
- Everyone who jumped off the Patriots bandwagon missed the boat, according to Karen Guregian. Guregian emphasizes what went right yesterday. (hmmm... pretty much everything???)
- Kevin Faulk gets some love and attention from Dan Ventura, and he deserves it especially after he one-handedly hauled in that deflected Matt Cassel pass for a 9-yard gain.
- Bob Glauber is baffled by Jets' HC Eric Mangini's play calling, and Ian O'Connor agrees, suggesting that Favre has been held back and should be allowed to use his arm.
Jim Donaldson at the Providence Journal asserts "underdog Patriots show the guts that the Jets lack."
- Shalise Manza Young gives her expert analysis. " Costly penalties, a big interception and a Patriots defense bent on being disciplined against the famously freewheeling Favre added up to a bad day at the tables for New York."
- Young also gives a shout-out to THE sack of the game, courtesy of Adalius Thomas. Co-starring grizzled veteran Brett Favre and Leon Washington.
- Mike McDermott gives props to the games unlikely heroes, Kevin Faulk, Brandon Meriweather, Stephen Gostkowski, and LaMont Jordan.
The Jets have been skewerd by their local coverage. Maybe they tucked in a bit too much at that optimism buffet?
- Brettribution Day will have to wait until next week's Jets game against the 2-0 Arizona Cardinals. That'll surely make the 2-0 Packers wish they hadn't forced out the great and powerful 1-1 Favre. Guess Jetribution Day will have to wait too.
- Greg Bishop of the New York Times sighs, "Despite the new season, the new optimism and the new quarterbacks, the teams finished with the most familiar of results."
- Gary Myers at the Daily News questions the lack of genious in Mangini.
- Ohm Young Misuk disses the Jets offense, summing up what went wrong. "It's three runs & a cloud of bust."
- "Same Old Belichick and Same Old Bretts." moans Steve Serby of the New York Post. " All [Belichick] needed was Mangini playing not to lose for the second straight week and Favre not playing well enough to win."
So many other great reads out there...not enough time or space in the world to print them. Great game by the Patriots. Lots of heart. Lots of pride. As Patriot's co-captain and team leader Randy Moss so eloquently put it last night,
"I don't think there is one person in my face with this microphone that picked us to win," Moss said to a group of reporters.
"I'm going to end [my interview this way]: The New England Patriots [are] 2-0. We got one in the division, so all you haters keep hating. We're coming."