Glauber: Jets win over Patriots is critical

Bart Scott had some idea of what it might have been like if the Jets had followed up on their season-opening loss to the Ravens with another clunker against the Patriots at New Meadowlands Stadium.

"You guys would have killed us," the Jets' linebacker said. "We wouldn't have been able to go to the grocery store without being hit by eggs if we lost this one."

A slight exaggeration, perhaps, but you get the idea. A loss to the Patriots, and the Jets would have been 0-2 at home, with two losses in the conference and one in the division. And who knows the untold damage to their psyche after their summerlong buildup that included daily references to making a Super Bowl run?

Bill Parcells always used to say it was euphoria or disaster around here, and you know where the dial on the meter would have pointed if Tom Brady did a number on the Jets at New Meadowlands Stadium.

No wonder yesterday's 28-14 win over the Patriots was so critical. With Mark Sanchez playing perhaps the best game of his young career, and with a defense overcoming the first-half injury to All-Pro cornerback Darrelle Revis, the Jets pulled out of their early-season mini-crisis, and allowed their fans to remove their collective finger from the panic button.

They did it with an attacking offense that featured Sanchez throwing three touchdown passes, wide receiver Braylon Edwards giving an in-your-face to criticism leveled by none other than Joe Namath, and a defense responding brilliantly without its best player by containing the Patriots' high-powered offense and pitching a shutout in the second half.

"This was as close to a must-win situation as you can get at this point," Scott said. "You can't go down 0-2 in the AFC and 0-1 in your division against a team that you know is going to be there right at the end and in the thick of things."

There are still plenty of twists and turns to come in an NFL season that is invariably filled with them; but for the moment, the Jets are at least a more settled team than the one that opened the season in pitiful fashion against the Ravens.

An offense that went just 1-for-11 on third-down conversions against the Ravens suddenly found itself against the Patriots. Sanchez threw for 220 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions and had a 124.3 rating. And the running game, behind reinvigorated veteran LaDainian Tomlinson, churned out 136 yards.

But the defense delivered a brilliant effort after Revis went down with a hamstring strain he aggravated earlier in the week. Trailing Randy Moss on a 34-yard touchdown pass late in the first half, Revis went in the locker room and was done. When the Jets came out of the second half, it was Drew Coleman who filled in.

And it was Antonio Cromartie who continued the effort in the secondary, as he shut Moss down in the second half. In all, Moss had just two catches for 38 yards and the touchdown. Cromartie defended him extremely well, even producing an interception in the third quarter.

Further evidence for head coach Rex Ryan that the Jets were able to win the way he wants them do: collectively.

"Every last man in our locker room had to get it done for us today," Ryan said. "When we talk about, 'It's not about one player, it's about the team,' that so evident today," he said. "It's about the [Jets] decal [on the helmet]. We know the guys for the Jets can get it done. I was proud of our football team."

He should have been. The Jets fell behind 14-7 in the first half, but responded to the Revis injury with the kind of resilience that you'd expect from a team with such grandiose goals. "We didn't panic, we just stayed the course," Scott said. "We knew they had given us their best shot and we had to respond."