Patriots Get Ugly Win, Manning Brothers to Again Meet on the Field

A win is a win but for the New England Patriots (2-0), they had an ugly 13-10 one on Thursday night against the New York Jets (1-0).

Playing in rainy weather, both teams relied on their rookies to get the job done. Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is without his usual trusted offensive weapons this season and has to look to new faces. For the night, he was 19 for 39, 185 yards and one touchdown.

Veteran wide receiver Julian Edelman emerged as Brady’s key target of choice for Thursday’s game as he threw 13 of 19 receptions to Edelman, giving the player the lead receiving numbers for the night at 13 for 78.

Coming in behind Edelman, was rookie Aaron Dobson. He went 3 for 56 yards and one touchdown (his first 39-yard touchdown pass).

Gone are the familiar names of Wes Welker, Aaron Hernandez and Rob Gronkowski.

Tom Brady

The Patriots, last season’s NFL leader for scores and yards, had only nine first downs and 11 punts on Thursday. Brady said of the game via the Associated Press, “We have a long way to go. No one is coming to (our) rescue and save the day, so we’ve just got to fight through it.”

For now, the Patriots sit at 10/1 to win the 2014 Super Bowl.

As for Jets rookie quarterback Geno Smith, he made some mistakes but he had more passing yards than the veteran as he went 15 for 35, 214 yards. The Jets also had more yards with 318 vs. the Patriots’ 232 but Smith had the honor of more interceptions than Brady: three of them over an 11-minute time period. Two came in the fourth quarter when Patriots cornerback Aqib Talib picked off both of them.

There were also a number of dropped balls by Smith–something Jets coach Rex Ryan did not want to put a number on after the game (the magic number was six).

But for both teams, they’ll have to deal with their depleted rosters. For the Jets, quarterback Mark Sanchez has a torn right labrum. He visited the renowned Dr. Andrew this week and has opted to forgo surgery at this time in hopes of returning to the field this season.

Sanchez said to NFL.com‘s Rich Eisen on Thursday, “I’m rehabbing my ass off to try and make it back, and that’s where my head’s at. There is no plan for surgery at this time.”

In addition to the fact that Sanchez knows his days are likely numbered with the Jets, another motivator for the player to return to the field is that he believes from his preseason performance, he played better than Smith and won the competition for the starting role. He was emphatic about it when speaking with Eisen and said of winning it, channeling his inner Rex Ryan, “There’s no doubt. It was a done deal.”

While seen on the sidelines performing abdominal exercises on Thursday, Sanchez will likely stay there for a few weeks, watching Smith in his job.

This Jets team could be playing on life support until–and if–Smith improves. They sit at 100/1 to win the 2014 Super Bowl.

Get Ready for the Manning Bowl…For NFL fans, it will be another repeat of the Manning Bowl as the Denver Broncos (1-0) take on the New York Giants (0-1) on Sunday at 4:25 p.m. ET. It was just a week ago that Peyton Manning had his record-setting night against the Baltimore Ravens (0-1). What will he do for a repeat performance?

For the brothers, they’ve met twice before and the older brother has been the winner (a 2006 26-21 win and a 2010 38-14 victory) when he played for the Indianapolis Colts (1-0). Eli had a nice passing game with 450 yards against the Dallas Cowboys (1-0) last week but he did not walk away with a first-week win.

In this third and maybe final meeting, things happen in threes as Peyton gets another win (-4.5, 54.5 o/u).