AFC East: Pats-Jets Takes on New Level of Intrigue

Football Betting Lines

11/11/2008 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The residue of the Spygate controversy and the simmering bad blood between head coaches Bill Belichick and Eric Mangini will have to take a back seat on Thursday night.

The headline in the primetime tilt between the New England Patriots and New York Jets at Gillette Stadium will concern a battle for first place between a pair of teams attempting to navigate the AFC East, a division that has arguably become the most competitive in football.

The homestanding Pats are fresh off a dominant 20-10 takedown of the Buffalo Bills this past Sunday, a game that knocked one member of what had been a three-way tie for first in the AFC East down a rung.

The Patriots moved to 6-3 with the triumph, while the Bills joined the Dolphins at 5-4 and into a tie for third place in the division.

Meanwhile, keeping pace with the Pats were the New York Jets, who exploded for a 47-3 victory over the St. Louis Rams in the most decisive triumph in franchise history.

Mangini's squad opened up a 40-0 halftime lead on the Rams before putting on the brakes thereafter, as Gang Green recorded its fifth win in six outings.

The Jets forced five turnovers to help fuel the win, while Thomas Jones (26 carries, 149 yards, 3 TD) and Leon Washington (12 carries, 54 yards) led a 200-plus-yard rushing effort for the day.

Both teams are in the ballpark of where they want to be as mid-November approaches, but Thursday's contest will shift the hierarchy to single one out as the division's unquestioned "team to beat" going into the season's final six weeks.

"It's a huge game. It's a divisional rival," said Jones. "It has a lot of implications as far as who is going to be in sole (possession of) first place in the division which leads into other things as the season goes along. It's a really big game for us and we look forward to it."

Heightening the emotions on Thursday will be the presence of two former Patriots in the Jets' lineup.

Making a return to New England is right tackle Damien Woody, who started 76 games as a member of the Pats from 1999 through 2003, as well as the team's Super Bowl win over the Rams following the 2001 campaign.

Also likely to contribute for New York is 34-year-old veteran cornerback Ty Law, who played 10 years with New England (1995-2004), winning three Super Bowls and making four Pro Bowls as a member of the Pats. Law, who was most recently on an NFL roster with the Chiefs in 2007, signed a free agent contract with New York on Monday.

For a Jets team that now ranks second in the league with 31 sacks on the season, an upgraded secondary can only make things more dangerous for Belichick and company.

"I think the reason that the Jets are winning a lot more games this year is because of their defense," said New England guard Logan Mankins. "They're much improved from last year. They're playing very well."

The Patriots were 19-10 road winners when they visited the Jets back in Week 2, but New England sees a different team as it prepares to square off against Gang Green at Gillette Stadium.

"They have been putting up points, they are a high-scoring offense," said end Jarvis Green. "Their defense is playing well. We know it is going to be a lot harder this week than the first time we played them."

The pivotal nature of Thursday night's contest relative to the AFC East standings and playoff race certainly overshadows any off-the-field bickering between the two franchises, but rest assured, the rivalry between the Patriots and Jets goes beyond the usual competitive distaste that pervades divisional matchups.

To recap, a frosty relationship between Belichick and his former defensive coordinator Mangini got even icier on Sept. 9, 2007, when the league confiscated videos of the Patriots taping the Jets' defensive signals in what would be a 38-14 New England win. It is believed that Mangini, the former New England assistant, tipped the NFL off to the practice.

The league would later fine Belichick $500,000 and New England $250,000, while stripping New England of a first-round choice in the 2008 Draft.

The controversy surrounding the incident would last the entire season, a campaign in which the Patriots would go an NFL-record 16-0 during the regular season before losing Super Bowl XLII to the New York Giants.

The firestorm included an investigation by U.S. senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) and allegations of taping by former New England video assistant Matt Walsh.

One game before the Pats would try to finish off the first 19-0 season in league history, the Boston Herald reported that an unnamed source claimed a member of the Patriots had secretly videotaped the St. Louis Rams' walk- through the day before Super Bowl XXXVI. The Herald later retracted the story, citing an inability to verify the existence of the walk-through video, and apologized to the team.

Not that either team will be focusing on that ugliness on Thursday, with first place in a hotly-contested division on the line.

"It's a great position to be in, to be a division leader at this point," said Mangini. "I understand the environment that we're going into. I understand the team that we're playing against. It's a good opportunity for us."

BILLS: Buffalo's loss in New England on Sunday was damaging in a number of ways.

The Bills' loss dropped them to 0-3 in AFC East play, and in a jam-packed division where tie-breakers figure to play a role when all is said and done, that could end up being a major problem.

Buffalo's piece of the AFC East high ground, a status that was once well- protected, has now completely eroded. Dick Jauron and company are only a game behind the Jets and Patriots now, but that also means they're tied for last in the division along with ascending Miami.

But the most discouraging development of all is that Buffalo has lost three in a row since its 5-1 start, and a young team's confidence has to be flagging at this stage.

Moreover, an offense that was a credit to the team in the early-going has been sputtering more often that it has been efficient, and second-year quarterback Trent Edwards hasn't looked anything like the Pro Bowler he seemed close to becoming in September and early October.

Edwards has committed seven turnovers (five INT, two fumbles) and thrown just two touchdowns in the past three weeks, and Buffalo is now 24th in the league in total offense (303.8 yards per game) and 20th in scoring offense (21.3 points per game).

"I think we're just a little bit out of a place right now and we need to fix things really quickly," said Edwards after Sunday's defeat.

"It's just little mistakes here and there, honestly...The mistakes that we weren't making earlier in the season, we're now making those mistakes for some reason. It's probably on us, and it probably has to do with the defenses that we're facing."

Jauron continues to stand behind his quarterback, even following a game in which the Bills registered their lowest totals of the year in points (10), first downs (10) and yards (168).

"I think we have a quarterback, I really like this guy," said Jauron. "To start the season he played so unlike a young quarterback that now whenever he makes an error, we think there is something wrong.

"[Sunday] was probably not his best day, clearly, in a number of ways. It's a learning experience. We're going to have to live with some things because I think he is an outstanding player."

Edwards believes the team is on the brink of regaining its early-season form,

"It's not like we're that far off," said the signal-caller. "That's what's frustrating right now. There are a lot of guys in this locker room that are very confident, but that's because we don't feel that we're that far away from beating a team like [New England], or winning these critical football games."

DOLPHINS: Back when he abruptly quit the Miami Dolphins prior to 2004 training camp, the thought of Ricky Williams adding another 100-yard game to his resume - as a member of the Dolphins, no less - would have seemed a stretch.

But Miami's prodigal son did just that in the team's important 21-19 win over the Seattle Seahawks, carrying 12 times for a season-high 105 yards and a touchdown to keep the Dolphins within striking distance in the AFC East. A dazzling 51-yard touchdown run accounted for nearly half of that total, and helped Williams establish a new single-game best for yards per carry at 8.8.

Williams' previous high in that category was 8.4 in a 27-carry, 228-yard day in a loss to the Bills in December of 2002.

It marked just the third time since Williams' temporary exodus that he had hit triple-digits, with the other two coming in the final two weeks of the 2005 season.

Williams was suspended for all of the 2006 season due to a repeat violation of the NFL's substance abuse policy, and appeared in just one game last year due to a torn chest muscle.

On Sunday, he looked reborn, though the 1998 Heisman Trophy winner insisted he cared more about the team's continued victorious ways than about personally hitting the 100-yard mark.

"I've run for tons in my career," Williams said following Sunday's triumph "I just want to win, really. It feels good to win and contribute, that's the biggest thing. People make a big deal over 100 yards, but it's only one more yard than 99 yards. For me, nothing takes the place of winning."