Neither play "wins the game"


There is running around out there in the ethersphere the idea that Sanchez once again was the victim of drops that ruined a heroic comeback against an arch-rival. Amazingly, one of these drops even happened by a Jet defender. But it is important to be realistic about this even though the impression that is left is that indeed it seems this way.

1. If Cromartie intercepts that ball we have the ball on the Pat 45 with 5:10 left. Instead we get the ball on our own 35 with 4:30 left. The difference is of 20 yards and :40 seconds. And the Jets just march down the field with plenty of time, making up both yardage and time in chunks. . There is no reason the think that somehow the Cromartie play wins the game as the Jets find themselves in advantageous position very quickly thereafter.

2. The Hill drop (which happens on the drive above) seems much more of a "blows the game" kind of play. But is it? If Hill catches the ball he likely is tackled on the 11 yard line ,1st and 10 with 2:10 left to play. Sounds pretty good, right? Well, we get the ball 10 second later 1st and 10 on the 18 yard line which also is very good and proceeded to go backwards on offense and kick a field goal. From what happened on the subsequent series you can't say in the least that Rex wouldn't have done the same thing trying to get a tie on the road: 2 running plays up the middle to burn NE time outs, and a pass play try to win the game (kicking a gimme field goal). In fact it would seem likely. A Hill catch does not "win the game".

Of course all this is hypothetical, but that also is imagining that if a play happened it would win the game. There is a certain fun in thinking about these things. While either play would have helped, if you look at the downs, distance, time and yardline, and what the Jets actually did in the aftermath, the game was more won and lost elsewhere. There were more important plays than these two obvious ones.