Despite the low completion percentage, I thought Brady played really well. His worst throw on the day may have been on the first TD pass – Vereen really bailed him out with the diving grab. His throw to Vereen on the second touchdown looked simple but he showed great patience with the Jets basically dropping 10 into coverage – he fit that ball right into a perfect window between a triangle of defenders and led Vereen safely to the ground to avoid a big hit. His scramble play and throw to Amendola was just an awesome play all the way around. He did a great a job all game of avoiding pressure and shifting in the pocket on play-action to allow a free blocker to seal off a free rusher.
The offensive line played well, but need to check how often the Jets actually rushed 4 or more. It seemed to be a lot of rush three, drop eight. Later in the game, the Jets brought more designed pressures, and I thought Brady had to get rid of the ball quickly – often just throwing it away. And Brady wasn’t seeing ghosts – the pressure was real. No real guage on the run blocking since the run game was an after-thought - most runs came out of pass personnel/formation with draws against lighter defensive fronts.
On the other side, the entire run defense looked out of position all game. Belichick specifically mentioned the run force/contain issues in his post-game PC. But it looked like a full team effort in this regard. The middle of the d-line was getting pushed around, creating huge running/cutback lanes. The second level defenders were out of position on their fits but often completely taken out of the play by second level blockers. Weak run support from the entire secondary, in particular the alley defenders getting caught out of position. The Jets were able to run up the middle, off tackle, outside, didn’t matter how or where.
Patriots were playing almost a hybrid 3-4 / 5-2 front throughout the game (with some big nickel mixed in), using heavy personnel in the middle (Wilfork, Chris Jones, Walker). The Jets offensive line just manhandled them. They almost never got Ivory moving laterally and, when they did, the force/contain wasn't present. Also, the Patriots played a good amount of zone coverage (combo of wanting to use coverage to confuse Smith instead of pressure as well as to help out when he scrambled), which should have allowed for better run support from the secondary since all eyes are in the backfield.