Sparked by the outstanding performance of QB Chad Pennington,the New York Jets snapped their 4-game losing streak, as they defeated the Minnesota Vikings 20-7. Pennington looked solid for the second game in a row, passing for 324 yards, 1 touchdown and no interceptions. He completed 24 of his 29 passes with an amazing quarterback rating of 124.7. WR Laveranues Coles, Pennington's primary target in this game, caught 6 passes for 86 yards, including a 7-yard touchdown in the 2nd quarter. WR Santana Moss seems to be becoming the player everyone expected him to be - 5 catches for career-high 111 yards. WR Wayne Chrebet returned to the lineup after missing week 5 with a knee injury, he caught 4 passes for 53 yards.
On the ground RB Curtis Martin started the game with a couple of 15+ yard runs in the first quarter, and it seemed like he wouldn't have any problems breaking the 100-yard mark. However, the Vikings' defense was keying on him the entire second half, allowing Martin to gain only 70 yards on 21 carries in this game. Overall, the Jets rushed for 91 yards, averaging a modest 3.1 yards per carry - not impressive at all against the Vikings' vanilla defense.
The Gang Green defense finally started doing what they were doing for the most part of last season - creating turnovers. The Jets intercepted three Daunte Culpepper's passes and also recovered a fumble. LB Mo Lewis looked like the Mo Lewis we are used to seeing. He had a pivotal interception that kept Minnesota away from the Jets end zone in the second quarter, and then also forced a fumble recovered by LB Marvin Jones. CB Donnie Abraham did a decent job covering Randy Moss. He intercepted Culpepper's first pass of the game and then added three pass defenses. Overall, the defense looked solid, but the run stoppage still has a lot of room to improve, as the Vikings averaged 4.4 yards per carry and rushed for over 100 yards. There's also a lot of work has to be done on 3rd downs - Minnesota was converting those with a 64% ratio.
Next Sunday the Jets will host the Cleveland Browns, a rather balanced team with a pretty good defense and an offense that can put up points on the board. It's going to be the first real test for Chad Pennington (the Browns' defense was 13th against the pass prior to week 7), so if you're already talking about a possible turnaround and a playoff run, let's wait and see how Pennington performs against a decent defense.