new england patriots

Ultimately the only thing that really matters on Sunday is that one team will be going to the AFC Championship and the other will be left to ponder what went wrong for the next six months.

But in the even bigger picture, the historical picture, there’s even more at stake. The Patriots and Jets are 2-2 in the last two seasons, and while the Patriots have two division titles, the Jets have three playoff wins.

All time, the Patriots – Jets series currently sits at 51-51-1. So yes, this game will not only decide who truly is the better team of the last two years, but which organization owns the most wins over the other. Of course we can get into Super Bowl title talk, but we’ll leave it at just head to head because we all know who wins that debate.

Then of course there’s Mark Sanchez and Rex Ryan. When they came to New York it was to dethrone the Patriots, and they have failed both times they’ve faced the Pats in a meaningful, late season game. If they lose this one as well, to a Patriots team that is younger than them, the pressure in 2011 will be even more squarely on Rexy and Sanchez to deliver.

Sanchez has been horrible in his two games at New England, throwing seven interceptions and fumbling twice. If he puts forth a third effort like that he’ll be hearing more and more questions if he has what it takes to beat the vaunted Pats when it’s do or die time. Stories in the offseason aren’t written about what happened week two, they’re written about how the season ended.

Tom Brady also has a chance to move within one more win of the all time playoff win record. He currently has 14, Montana has the record at 16.

In the regular season I’m usually a big proponent of whoever needs a game more usually wins. But in the playoffs sometimes needing the game means there’s more pressure and teams, especially young teams, can often fold under that pressure.

This is a chance for the Patriots young defense to prove that they can continue to play the style of football they played all season when it’s all on the line. They can’t try to do too much or make something out of nothing. But they also cannot play tentative or “not to lose”.

The Jets will not play that way. They are a playoff tested group that will come in, play their game and play it hard. If the young Patriots just do their job like they did for most of the season they will be fine.

The Pats were back in full pads today (all of their three practices in the last two weeks have been) and the good news was that Sebastian Vollmer, Eric Moore and Aaron Hernandez were all back, and Danny Woodhead was no longer in a red no-contact jersey.

The only two missing Pats were Jermaine Cunningham and Myron Pryor. Cunningham has been battling a calf injury, and though Pryor had missed significant time with a back injury his absence is a little mysterious because all reports last week said he was a-okay.

Facing the Jets without Pryor would not be the end of the world. Just about everyone expect the Jets to go with a heavy dose of ground and pound, and while Pryor would be good for depth on the DL his bread and butter would really be against a team that passes to win.

Cunningham on the other hand is significant. He’s one of the Patriots best run stoppers and would probably figure prominently into the game plan. If he can’t go the Pats would be forced to look at either Tully Banta-Cain or Eric Moore at outside linebacker in the 3-4 opposite Rob Ninkovich. Even if Cunningham can go there’s a chance he’ll be at less than 100%, which of course is not good.