Game Recap

My first ever holiday sporting event took place last night as I was lucky enough to be at The Meadowlands with my ever-thankful-for-girlfriend for Jets-Bengals.  A match up of teams with mirroring records; 8-2 for the Jets and a lowly 2-8 Cincinnati.

Last night's Jets game meant so much if everything went right but would be so bad if things went wrong.  Playing on the Thanksgiving for the first time in a few years, we went into the game totally expecting to win.  The Bengals may be one of the worst teams in the NFL, had a wide receiver that may be stinkier than poop but runs a big mouth, and is coming off an embarrassing loss the week before.  But the Jets have a tendency to play to the level of their opponent, knowing that New England won earlier in the day and it immediately became a larger game they could not lose.

And as usual, the game started very slowly for the Jets.  Painfully slow and disappointing.  The way the first half went was as typical as the last number of games, the offense could not move the ball whatsoever but the defense was stout as always.  Only down 7-3 at the half, the boys really took it to them in the last 30 minutes.

All season long the team has tried to run its version of the Wild Cat, the Seminole as they call it.  And run it they do, just never successfully.  And while last night it didn't really run all that well; the main person behind it had his breakout performance of the season.  Brad Smith had two different electrifying runs, a 55 yard end around and a 90 yard kick off return, for touchdowns.  The man was so hot he burned his shoe off his left foot on the kick off return run.

A 7-3 deficit became a 26-10 victory.  A win that was decided well before the last few minutes of the game.  A record that keeps them at the top of the AFC.  A date with the Patriots next Monday night, which will be the biggest regular season game of the year.  A holiday game to remember.  A season, so far, to be thankful for.