While a valant effort, the New York Jets couldn't dig themselves out of the first half hole and lost to the New England Patriots 17-24.

There is no new Sheriff in the AFC East, only the one that has dominated for the last five years and continues to do so. The New England Patriots have the Jets number. They have it written on a piece of paper they stick inside their helmets to play on Sunday and have been doing so for years.

Two Halves, Two Games

There were two games in the two different halves of this game. The first half was a one-sided domination as the Patriots ran and passed the ball down the field putting up 24 points. The Jets played their sparring dummy as they couldn't convert third downs and couldn't get the running game going. As the clock ticked down to the half we were getting a horrible case of "same-old-jets-itus" and needed relief.

We don't know what Eric Mangini and the other coaches said in the locker room at halftime but whatever it was, it worked. The Jets came out in the second half, a new team full of vigor. The play that sparked it all was an amazing catch and field awareness by Jerricho Cotchery who was hit by two defenders, kept his knee off the ground and broke one to the end zone. Fueled by that fire Laveranues Coles tried to do one better by breaking another set of tackles and running another into the end zone. Chad Pennington owes both those guys a few rounds of beer.

The defense stepped it up and stopped the Patriots from scoring in the second half. They pressured Tom Brady and kept the running game from converting third downs.

The game came down to a blocked field goal by Jonathan Vilma which gave the Jets a chance and just under a minute to go down the field and score. Too little too late but it was a game the Jets could have given up on but didn't. Somewhere down the line that attitude will win more than a few games

Knights of the Game

No doubt that Laveranues Coles and Jerricho Cotchery get knighted this week for two spectacular plays. They both showed that not only are they ready to play but ready to be players who make a difference in games. If Coles keeps this up, he might be knighted all the way to the post season.

The second knighting goes to Jonathan Vilma for not only putting up a set of tackles but by blocking that field goal. If the Jets had won that day, Vilma would deserve the MVP vote.

Fools of the Game

The running game makes its return this week as a fool for putting up such horrible numbers. Kevan Barlow had 14 attempts for 40 yards bringing his production in at 3 yards per carry. The only thing that makes that worse is Derrick Blaylock's performance of 6 carries for 7 yards. While the Patriot defense is not known for giving up big running yards, we expect much better from the running game. For the second week in a row we are calling on Mangini to give Leon Washington and Cedric Houston more shots at running the rock.

At the end of the day any game you have a shot at winning in the 4th quarter is a good game and our crowns off to Mangini for keeping his team in there and to Chad Pennington for putting up another 300 yards.

Throne Picks Review (1-2)

Our perfection didn't last long as we picked only one winner this week in our Throne Picks. We picked Miami to beat the Bills and obviously the Bills are not as bad as reported the Dolphins and Duante Culpepper are not as good. We did pick the Saints win over the Packers but maybe that was just a little too easy. Next week we will go for a little more challenging game.

Throne Picks Season: 5-2