Underdog Pats show guts Jets lack

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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- The Jets should be ashamed of themselves. The Patriots, on the other hand, should be very proud. Pride is what carried New England past New York, 19-10, Sunday at the Meadowlands. "I'm really proud," coach Bill Belichick said, "of the way the guys stepped up and played. A lot of people didn't expect us to do much today." Why would they? The Patriots were playing their first game since the second week of the 2001 season without NFL MVP Tom Brady at quarterback. In his place was Matt Cassel, who was starting his first game since he was a senior in high school in 1999. And at QB for the Jets was future Hall of Famer Brett Favre, who was starting his league-record 278th consecutive game. "This is a big win for us as a football team," said Richard Seymour, a five-time Pro Bowler at defensive end for New England. "This is the first time we've been in this situation in a long time. Every game we played last year, we were huge favorites." Sunday, they were underdogs. "Just because we lost our quarterback doesn't mean we don't still have a lot of good football players," Seymour said. "Tom's a great player, but there's a lot of ways to win -- although our margin of error may be smaller. "We've got a lot of veteran guys on this team, and some good younger players, who understand what it takes to win. We definitely had something to rally around." They had not just something, but someone: Cassel. "It was business as usual," said Seymour, "but quite different business, with Brady down and Cassel in." The Patriots got the job done in all three phases of the game. Cassel and the offense put up 19 points and didn't turn the ball over. The defense frustrated Favre, coming up with a goal-line stand to hold the Jets to a field goal in the first half, and then an interception early in the second half that led to New England's only touchdown. On special teams, kicker Stephen Gostkowski was a star, booting four field goals and booming every one of his six kickoffs into the end zone. Five of them were touchbacks, and the only one that was returned was brought out only to the 20. It was a game that game showed vividly why the Pats are champs, and the Jets are chumps. The AFC East still belongs to the Patriots until somebody comes along that's good enough, and tough enough, to take it away from them. And that ain't the Jets. It isn't just that the Patriots have more talent -- they do, even without Brady at quarterback -- but they also have more character. Which is the polite word for guts. The Patriots are not just better than the Jets, they're also tougher -- physically and, more importantly, mentally. It had to be disconcerting to lose Brady. He's the only starting quarterback anybody on the New England team has known, with the exception of Tedy Bruschi and Kevin Faulk. But just because they lost Brady, didn't mean they were going to lose to the Jets. The Pats almost never lose to the Jets. Brady was 7-0 at the Meadowlands, and 12-2 in 14 career starts against New York. But it was Cassel who was the starter Sunday. Not only had he never started a game since coming to New England as a seventh-round draft choice in 2005, but he had never even started a game as a collegian at Southern Cal, where he was backup to a couple of Heisman Trophy winners, Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart. "It was exciting," was how Cassel described what he jokingly referred to as "my first start since seventh grade." Cassel wasn't spectacular. He didn't have to be. What he was, was solid. Mistake-free. To use a phrase popular with Belichick, he "managed" the game very well. "Matt did a good job," Belichick said. "He took care of the ball. He made good decisions. He didn't put us in bad situations, and he made some good, positive plays." While a Favre interception led to New England's only touchdown, Cassel didn't have any picks, completing 16 of 23 passes for 165 yards. "Any time you have a shakeup like we did," said Matt Light, the Pats' All-Pro tackle, and a close friend of Brady, "and win on the road, that does a lot for your confidence. The defense played great. The special teams were huge. Offensively, we did what we had to do to get the job done. It's a step in the right direction. Now we have to build on this."(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)