Robert Saleh will be out of excuses if Jets blow this game to Patriots

Robert Saleh was responsible for five of the 15 consecutive games that the Jets lost to the Patriots.

Bill Belichick isn’t coaching the Patriots anymore.

Tom Brady hasn’t quarterbacked the Patriots since 2019.

Aaron Rodgers, who returns to the scene of the crime and a warm welcome when he makes his 2024 MetLife debut on Thursday night against the Patriots, is Saleh’s quarterback.

The Jets cannot lose this game.

Saleh cannot afford to lose this game.

Not when you are the coach with Aaron Rodgers. Not when you are the coach with the 19-34 record. Not when you are the coach of the team with Super Bowl aspirations.

He didn’t come here to kiss Jerod Mayo’s ring, did he?

Saleh can’t afford to get outcoached by a rookie. Not now. Not here. He cannot afford not to have his team show up fully motivated. He cannot afford his beloved defense to lose its edge without Jermaine Johnson (Achilles) and Haason Reddick continuing his mind-blowing holdout.

The Bills have commandeered the AFC East from the Patriots for the past four years. With the GOAT coach and the GOAT quarterback on television these days, the Patriots are rebuilding with a rookie head coach in Mayo and a journeyman quarterback in Jacoby Brissett, with third-overall draft pick and quarterback of the future Drake Maye waiting in the wings.

By no means does this make the Patriots patsies. Mayo upset the Bengals in Week 1 before losing his home opener to the Seahawks in overtime. Looks like he’ll be a tough out. He has an old-school outfit: run the ball, play defense, keep it close in the fourth quarter.

There is no better time than now, in this season of great expectations, for the Jets and for Saleh to begin building a streak of their own against the Patriots.

Saleh, with Zach Wilson (two touchdowns, seven interceptions) as his quarterback, is 0-3 against the Patriots at MetLife.

There is no better time than the home opener for Rodgers to remind Jets fans, who were cheated out of watching him last season by yet another Stupid Jet Trick from the cruel football gods, what the fuss is still all about post-Achilles.

For all those years, the Jets would all but swoon at the feet of Belichick’s Patriots. Belichick won six Super Bowls with Brady while Joe Namath was tweeting depressing thoughts. Remember that prime-time night when Sam Darnold saw ghosts?

Belichick reveled in delight with every humiliation of the franchise he spurned as “HC of the NYJ.” So of course the Jets reveled in sending Belichick out a loser in his final game as Patriots coach in the 2023 regular-season finale.

“Whether he was here or not, it’s time. They had their fun with the hot number that they had, so now it’s our turn to turn the tables,” C.J. Mosley said.

Darnold isn’t quarterbacking the Jets anymore. Wilson isn’t quarterbacking the Jets anymore.

Aaron Rodgers is quarterbacking the Jets.

Saleh needs to be held responsible for stretching the streak to two consecutive wins over the Patriots.

“We ended it last year, now it’s in our favor 1-0. … Might as well keep it going, huh?” Tyler Conklin said. “I’m excited not to hear about that damn streak anymore, I’ll tell you that much. I wasn’t here for all of it, but the last two years all it ever was every time Patriots week came up was, ‘Streak, streak, streak.’ So, I’m happy that those questions are over with.”

After two games away from his new home, Rodgers should at least have chipped off more than a modicum of rust. As we wait for a Garrett Wilson explosion or TD catch, or the integration of WR Mike Williams and perhaps Conklin, Breece Hall appears primed and ready to be this team’s Christian McCaffrey. Breece the Beast is an elite weapon running it and catching it, and gets rested by 240-pound rookie Braelon Allen.

It’s a game in the division, and a Boston-New York rivalry. The worries about Rodgers getting hit and hurt have subsided behind his experienced offensive line. The Patriots rushed for 185 yards against the Seahawks and will look to keep Brissett from airing it out, and keep Rodgers off the field.

Rodgers and the Jets are not yet the finely tuned machine they are confident they will be.

“We’re real close, man,” Alijah Vera-Tucker said. “We’re looking to break out real soon.”

This will mark the merciful end of three games in 11 nights for the Jets. Rodgers has an offensive line that has kept him from feeling 40. Some younger teammates a long way from 40 might feel 40. Saleh has told the media and his team that nobody cares.

And he’s right.

So no excuses.

No excuses and no Belichick and no Brady, who left New England before Saleh succeeded Adam Gase in 2021. Remember how good those snow angels at Gillette Stadium felt last January. Let the Patriots start answering questions about their two-game losing streak to the Jets.