Did Patriots leave the door open against Jets?

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00:00I think that game was such a take-care-of-business game for the Patriots.

00:04Look, the Jets were obviously an inferior opponent,

00:06but Thursday night football games, always a little weird.

00:09Divisional football games, always a little weird.

00:12The Patriots didn't play their best game in that setting.

00:14They won. They covered.

00:16They definitely have things to clean up,

00:17which I'm sure we'll get to over the next four hours,

00:20that they now have the mini-bye to kind of work on.

00:22But good teams sometimes, you've got to grind it out

00:25against a divisional opponent in a tough spot.

00:27They did that. They got stronger as the game went on.

00:31It's not a blowout win, but I think you come away feeling pretty good

00:34about where they're at in the big picture.

00:36Maz.

00:36Okay, Mike, let me just say quickly, you know, a minute, two minutes into the show,

00:41whatever it is, your audio connection today is way, way better than it was yesterday.

00:46You're welcome.

00:47Okay, so I'm just telling you that right now.

00:50Now, I think everybody would agree with Alex's general assessment of the game.

00:57Thursday night, division opponent, going to be sloppy, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

01:01All of which I totally concede.

01:03The most important thing for the Patriots was to get through that game,

01:06not have any sort of major slip-up or disaster, come out with a win, move on.

01:12Now, but if we are talking about the game, the actual game, the one played for 60 minutes

01:20between the lines on the field last night at Gillette Stadium, if they had played a better

01:26opponent, they were ripe for the picking.

01:28So, they let the Jets hang around in this game way too long, and the reason it never really

01:36got fully threatened is because of the ineptitude of the Jets.

01:39I'm not telling you that I'm angry about it.

01:42I'm not telling you that it's any harbinger of things to come, but they left the door open

01:48repeatedly for the Jets to get back into that game until probably the end of the third quarter,

01:53maybe beginning of the fourth, and to me, that was way too long.

01:58It took too long, but they're clearly the better team.

02:01They already have guaranteed themselves a winning record, and everybody should be happy

02:06with where the Patriots are in the big picture, 9-2, going into what basically is the home stretch

02:13of the season.

02:14They are in position to be the number one seed and get a bye in the AFC, and they should

02:20end up in that role.