New England Patriots win 29-26 against New York Jets after overtime - NFL Recap
Another game against the New England Patriots and another time that New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan’s prediction of defeating their AFC East rivals came to nought.
New England managed to once again ruin Rex Ryan’s day after they just about managed to defeat the New York Jets 29-26 in overtime.
After the New York Jets worked so hard to close the 10-point gap between them and the Patriots in the fourth quarter and take the lead, all their hard work came to nothing with the Patriots equalising deep in the fourth quarter to send the game to overtime.
In overtime, the Patriots scored the first field goal through Stephen Gostkowski whose 48 yarder came good.
However, under the new rules the opponent also gets a chance to level things if a field goal is scored and Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez tried to bring his team within field goal range.
Sanchez though lost the ball on the final play after he fumbled and the Patriots linebacker Rob Ninkovich recovered the ball to end the game with a win for the Patriots and putting them ahead in the race for the AFC East crown.
Speaking to the media after his important fumble recovery Ninkovich said:
"The whole time I'm thinking, 'Hey, this can't happen again. We've just got to fight all four quarters, hold them to a field goal at the end.’ In overtime we said, 'Hey, it's overtime. We know we're going to get a chance, so let's go out there and finish this game.' "
New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan rued the mistakes that led the Patriots to equalise in the first place to send the game to overtime.
Speaking after the game he said:
"We made too many mistakes but we had our opportunities. It just stinks being on this end of it."
The victory now sees New England improve to 4-3 and get ahead in the race for the division title although a lot of games are still left to be played.
This was the fourth time this season that the Patriots had their game decided in the final two minutes of the fourth quarter while it was also the first time that New England emerged victorious from such a situation.
"It comes down to a few plays," Tom Brady said. "We had opportunities last week (at Seattle). We had opportunities against Baltimore. We had opportunities against the Cardinals, and when you make the plays you win the game."
The Patriots blew a 10-point lead but held off New York’s attempts to score a touchdown with the Jets settling for a field goal that made it 26-23.
New England on the final play of the quarter equalised to send the game to overtime.
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