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Patriots Fan Gets Free Tickets to Jets Game from Edge

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Getting tickets to an NFL game these days can be pretty irritating. You’ll be lucky to find a face value ticket to see a good team play, and more often you’re left to scour ebay and online ticket sites that jack up the prices.

Matthew DeCoste was a Patriots fan in New York who was having a hard time finding a ticket to this past weekend’s debacle against the Jets. After tweeting about his frustration the folks at Edge Shave Zone heard his complaints and gave him two tickets to the game as part of their new Anti-Irritation Twitter campaign.

Why can’t more companies give away free tickets to games? Maybe it’s a good time to complain about how irritating it has been finding a ticket to the Pats/Chargers game on 10/24 for me… 

Or maybe I should tweet how irritating I find the Jets in general, tag it with #SoIrritating and see what kind of creative solutions the Edge guys can come up with? Perhaps they could shaving cream bomb the Jets headquarters? That was a popular method of retribution at my prep school.

Anyway, a couple questions with Matthew, who witnessed the carnage in person, below.

How did you become a Patriots fans/any roots in New England?

I was born and raised in Boston so I’ve been a lifelong Patriots fan. From Grogan, to Hugh Millen, Drew Bledsoe and now Brady, I’ve followed the Pats through it all.

What was your overall impression of the new stadium?

The new stadium is extremely impressive. Getting off the PATH and into the gates was pretty seamless. The concourses are large so there is a lot of room to move around inside and the concession lines were unbelievably quick. They stopped selling beer at halftime, so that was a minus. But, overall, it was a great venue to catch a game.

Did you get an “irritation” from any Jets fans?

There were a few Pats fans in my vicinity that were pretty vocal, so they caught most of the trash talk from Jets fans. But, there was a guy sitting in front of me—who admitted he is a Giants fan—that kept turning around and blocking my view with a Jets towel when the Pats had the ball. So that was pretty irritating. Reminding Jets fans that they haven’t won a Super Bowl since the year Nixon took office was fun, though.

What were your most and least favorite moments from the day?

Seeing the entire play of Randy Moss’s unbelievable touchdown catch develop in person was amazing. He made his break towards the middle of the field and Brady identified it, and just threw a perfect lead pass towards the end zone. Randy just putting one hand up, catching the ball, and then never using a second hand to secure it was pretty insane. 

My least favorite moment was the entire second half. The Patriots just slowly falling apart and opening up all of us Pats fans to a half hour (of game time, mind you. More like an hour in real time) of torment from Jets fans was particularly unpleasant.

Well That Sucked… (Patriots Defense Edition)

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I consider myself a fan of offensive football, but a student of defensive football, so I wanted to take another look at the game before posting my thoughts on the defensive performance against the Jets.

First a reminder that this is a young defense and they certainly showed it yesterday. I’m sure Darius Butler is getting killed on the Boston airwaves today, but let’s remember this is his second game starting.

With that said, this defense was carved up by Mark Sanchez yesterday. Woah, read that last sentence again. Scary, right? Well, it’s week two so let’s all relax and remember that the Jets offense is largely a veteran group. I’m not going to say that this is an excuse. The Patriots were outplayed by the Jets in all facets of the game. But you cannot be discouraged because we should see improvement as the season progresses. 

Surely everyone out there is ripping the Patriots defense a new one today. But let’s just focus on the positives and most interesting points.

1. Devin McCourty, Brandon Spikes and Jermaine Cunningham all look like they will develop into solid players. Add in Chung, Brace, and yes even Butler and you have six defensive players in their first two years who are major contributors. This will pay off in the years to come. I know it’s hard to have this perspective now.

2. Welcome to bizarro world but Ron Brace was an excellent run stopper yesterday.  Brace seems to be improving each week now, his development allowed the Pats to slide Gerard Warren over to RDE and put Mike Wright in the situational role he seems most suited for. This is an encouraging development.

3. Undrafted rookie Kyle Love is getting playing time as a backup nose tackle.

4. Anyone else notice it’s not Jonathan Wilhite getting toasted every play now? Granted Butler is, but hey maybe Wilhite is improving? 

5. Cunningham got time at ROLB and DPR (designated pass rusher) and had a heads up play to not lose contain on a reverse. He improved from last week to this week and that’s a very good sign.

6. Brandon Spikes continues to make a big difference in the run game. The Jets ran all over the Pats sub packages but that was not when Spikes was in the game. He looks fast to the ball and by buttoning up the base run defense his impact has been huge. He’s also being used as a down lineman in the goalline package which is interesting. I expect his role to continue to increase.

7. Brandon Meriweather needs to get it together. This defense badly needs him to play well. He’s primarily being used in passing situations now, and you can’t discount his regression when talking about how the Patriots defense has lacked luster. When we see him starting we’ll know he’s turned it around. Let’s remember he led the Pats D in snaps played in 2009.

8. Rob Ninkovich is playing a much bigger part in the defense than any of us would’ve predicted. His missed tackle on Ladainian Tomlinson’s long 4th quarter run was a back breaker. But Ninkopoop had been fairly strong against the run to that point.

9. Didn’t see a lot out of Patrick Chung yesterday.

10. No big plays from the defense against the Jets. No interceptions or forced fumbles. This is not a hallmark of a great defense, and something that needs to change.

The Bills have been trying to run a spread offense much of the time so far this season. They haven’t put up many points but they’ve given up less than the Pats have. This will be an excellent test for the Patriots defense because we know they’re going to attack what the Pats don’t do well at… short passes and runs against their subpackages. 

Wilfork: Sub Runs Killing Pats

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Wilfork: Sub Runs Killing Pats

Love when players get specific in their radio interviews as Vince did today. I clearly noticed the effect of sub runs in the second half upon rewatching the game tape, it’s especially noticeable when you see Gary Guyton on the field. Guyton had trouble as the Mike in the base defense last year. Not pinning this all on him, but clearly the Pats need to really focus on this area. 

RUMOR: Pats Interested in Vincent Jackson

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I can’t vouch for this guy but he seems to be a New York radio personality that had good sources when the whole Revis deal went down, and he’s saying that those same trusted sources are telling him the Pats are interested in Vincent Jackson.

You can see his twitter feed where he made the announcement here.

We had heard last year that the Pats have Vincent Jackson rated as their top wide receiver in the NFL (outside of Foxboro I assume) so it probably isn’t much of a secret that they think he’s a player.

The problem starts with Vincent Jackson wanting to be paid somewhere in the $9 million per year range while Randy Moss and Logan Mankins are already complaining about the Patriots and money. Don’t forget Wes Welker’s going to want a new deal pretty soon too. Not sure the Patriots could put together a compensation package that would attract Jackson, and if they did it might make waves in the locker room.

Clearly with seven picks in the first four rounds of the 2011 draft they could probably figure out a compensation package for the Chargers. Though San Diego would probably loathe sending him to New England.

On the field is the place it would make the most sense, especially if Randy Moss is gone after this year.

Meriweather Explains Why He’s Down the Depth Chart

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Meriweather Explains Why He’s Down the Depth Chart

After yesterday it’s hard not to think the Patriots really needs Meriweather to step up. This is the wrong point in his career to take a step backwards. In year four, after sneaking into the Pro Bowl, he really should be starting to make more big plays and making his presence felt. If he gets on track it would be greatly helpful for a team that badly needs him.