the 2 teams are really not all that close in most meaningful metrics

Pats came into this week 4th in DVOA at 39%, Jets 17th at 3%

Pats are 3rd in the league in point differential at +100 (+14 per game), Jets are 10th at +43 (+5 per game)

the Miami team that went to the Meadowlands yesterday as a 3.5 point dog is a 10.5 dog at Foxboro for this week.

lol @ using that

The Patriots are coming off a bye, players rested and most if not all coming back from injury. Jets just flew back from Oakland without their best run stopper and arguably best defender and dealing with injuries elsewhere. The Dolphins were also coming off a bye

debo, i suggest you concede. youre about to get into an argument youre going to lose badly

I'm not even trying to argue that Jets> Pats, or anything of the sort. I've come to the (sad) realization that the Pats are better, and that's known.

I just said it is silly to talk about stats, and when it comes to defense and the Pats are higher saying they are higher then the Jets. That should be assumed, the Pats had a BYE week and the Jets didn't

I didn't disagree with KB4Z statements of others, I just think using betting line as a 'more meaningful metric' isn't right

betting lines aren't an "accurate metric" but they give a general idea of where teams at, and in that they are somewhat accurate. that the jets were favored by 3.5 at home, and the pats are 10.5 favs a week later at home as well is indeed something significant

but dvoa has the jets defense at 6, the pats at 9, so weve gotm there!

my guess is that you're overrating the effect the byes have, though I'd actually be interested to learn exactly how many points a line will actually move b/c of one.

I think when the Jets come to Foxboro, they will be 8 or 9 point dogs, or something like that. something along the lines of the spread difference indicated by Miami @ NYJ vs Miami @ Foxboro

Pats have plenty of injuries as well. is Jenkins more valuable to the Jets than Matt Light is to the Pats? I mean, a great LT is critical for a team that throws as much as the Pats, and Jenkins is very valuable to the Jets D. though, Vollmer has filled in well so far for Light and the Jets D still overwhelmed the Dolphins wo Jenkins.

other parts of the offense missing were Sammy Morris, Fred Talyor, and Julian Edelman who while being a rookie has been our 3rd WR. so it's not like we are going 100% here.

more importantly, the injuries of both teams reflect their current realities - wondering what it could be if different players were around might be interesting to discuss but ultimately meaningless.

using betting lines (esp closing betting lines) to create 'power rankings' is probably the best method there is. go ask anyone in Sports Betting what % of bettors can beat NFL closing lines, and they'll tell you: almost no one. which means they are very accurate at judging team strength each week, certainly way better than whatever Peter King or Dan Banks or me or you or whoever happens to think.

this is why I used per game point differential along with the totals. regarding whose defense is better, eh, different metrics say different things. it's close. the Jets have played a bit better to this point, but going forward I think it will be close to a wash

I think debo and KB4Z are talking about two different things. debo was saying the Pats and Jets are close defensively, which they are, with a slight edge to NY. But obviously the Pats have a huge edge offensively, which I think KB4Z was incorporating.

I would say the majority of the people there were english people who wanted to see an nfl game. walking around london a few days before the game i saw a fair amount of pats jerseys. at the game, most of the people were just wearing random jerseys. all of the people around me were from england and all supported different teams.

the pregame thing was kind of cool. they had these exhibits with a little story about every team. in addition, there was a museum type place with various helmets, superbowl trophies, rings etc. unfortunately the only beer available at the tailgate was coors light.

the stadium was enormous and appeared to be completly full. the crowd was very quiet in my section and most people seemed confused with the fouls. no beer delivery to the seats which was annoying.

im from boston so it was great to see the pats dominate. i was able to buy a ticket last minute and fly to london from spain where i am studying for the year.

stadium from the train station nearby


me inside stadium


tom brady leading the charge


entry to nfl tailgate

I like the view of the inside of Wembley

Balla trip imo.

Gg today imo. I was pleased with our offensive production yardage wise, both running and passing. I thought our running game did a lot better than the TV announcers seemed to give them credit for. The last few weeks have just made it appear that Brady/Moss/Welker are all still at or near the top of their game, which makes us a threat to any team.

Our run defense looked good. Passing defense looked shaky to me (again) especially seeing the quality of QB/WRs we were up against.

Im expecting us to be a small dog against Indy this week but i like our chances. Indys been losing defensive starters like crazy and the lack of Bob Sanders is good news for us. The injuries to our offensive line (Light and then Koppen today) will hurt us more against the Colts than against an avg team IMO. Heres to hoping they both are OK this week.

If Brady hadn't missed a year and started the year without rust this team would be 8-0 right now. Next week will say which team is the best in the league all due respect to NO.

I don't know if we would be 8-0...but yeah it hurt us. this week was kind of a meh game.
we have only showed our A game in spurts so far this year, so hopefully we can put it all together this week

I thought our D this week was actually pretty good against the standard Miami sets. We were confused by the Pistol at first and that hurt, but in general we did fine.

key matchup this week will be McGowan vs Dallas Clark. he has been great vs other TE's this year and will need to be huge this week. I expect us to play a "big nickel" or dime almost all game.

pretty obv were just gonna have sickening loss after sickening loss in big games. we arent gonna win the superbowl this year. not because we lost this game, but because the D cant get stops when it matters. i thought this while watching the games but the stats have made our D look decent. BB pretty much confirmed that he has no trust in the D, so its pretty much over.

back when we had superbowl calibur teams we would stop the colts 4 times at the 1 yard line ffs.

Ponies, the other 2 "sickening" losses as you call them were early in the season when Brady was rusty and subpar. I'm actually optimistic about this team. They went toe to toe with the team to beat at their place but just let it slip away.

Still a long way to go, enjoy the season as this team is fun to watch.

Agreed. Let's call this evening out....definitely didn't deserve to win against Buffalo and pulled it out still. Obviously I hate Peyton so I'd rather lose that one and win this one but meh....not to mention at least in that one we created the opportunity to win whereas, well, I won't get into anymore but you guys know what happened last night.

something else to argue about, should there have been PI called on the 4th and 2? Considering the tight standard of PI on the Colts scoring drive, or whenever the Colts have the ball against us since 2003.

Very hard tell from the TV angles, at 0:57 it looks like the arm is around Faulk when the ball is in the air. Faulk's bobbling is most likely cause by the defender hanging on him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsU-jkmYXyM

You won't find a bigger Patriots homer than me and I rewatched that a few times and just do not see a pass interference there at all.

what do you guys think of the play call on 4th and 2?

all my pats fan friends thought it was an obvious punt, but to me it looks like a pretty reasonable % play to kill off the game (if we get the 1st, we pretty much win), whereas the diff in point equity between a punt and turning it over on downs is quite small imo

I like runnning on both 3rd and 4th down. No way the Colts D is THAT good even if they completely cheat the pass, in which case Brady would audible.

There are a couple other threads where most posters say the 4th down call was right, but differ as to how close it was.

well, that one hurt. I sat on my couch for a good 5 minutes completely/stunned/zonked out. I was pretty drunk which probably contributed to that, but yeah, what a stunning finish.

Good news: Vollmer is the real deal, no doubt. we are going to have a good problem when Light comes back, which could be as soon as this week. Light or Vollmer to RT? I think they are both good enough that they have to be on the field, but transitioning someone to RT, particularly a young guy, is hard to do.

the defense played great...until the end. the lack of depth in the front 7 came back to hurt us. the good news is that Green, Warren, and TBC should all be back.

in general, the Pats were the better team last night. outgained the Colts by a good amount. we fumbled at the goaline and penalties went against us. Kevin Faulk doesn't bobble that ball and we win. I feel confident that have a better team than they do, and feel good against anyone.

I was concerned with WR depth, and was happy to see a few youngsters out there contributing.

if that was a playoff game, I would be on lifetilt, but we have time to recover and possibly battle for the bye. all in all, I am ok with where we are.

also, BB was right to go for it.

I actually think Vollmer is playing a better Left Tackle than Light was. He has more size and strength too. So I would transition Light to Right Tackle.

I hope a similar situation comes up again this year and BB goes for it again. It would be a shame if he started doubting himself, even though I hope he doesn't give a **** what the media thinks.

Anything that gets Nick Kaczur off the field is fine with me.