Why Trevor Siemian can finally lead the NY Jets to victory over the Patriots

The 15 straight games the Patriots have beaten the NY Jets now make up the longest active winning streak that any NFL team has over another. The Kansas City Chiefs began this season with a 15-game winning streak against the Denver Broncos and extended it to 16 before losing 24-9 back in October to break the streak.

15 happens to tie the Patriots’ franchise record for most consecutive wins against a team, which they had against the Buffalo Bills from 2003-2011. A win this week would make this active streak their longest streak in history.

It would also put the Jets at serious risk of giving the Patriots the longest winning streak ever in NFL history, which is currently the 20 wins the Dolphins laid consecutively on the Bills throughout the 1970s. 

I will also point out that both of the last two Jets regimes’ worst losses came at the hands of Bill Belichick, where Sam Darnold was seeing ghosts in 2019, and Robert Saleh’s defense allowed 54 points in 2021, the most in his career as a head coach. 

Perhaps a more encouraging stat is in the Sauce Gardner era, the Patriots have only scored an average of 15.6 points per game against the Jets. In Trevor Siemian’s two starts as Jets QB this season, the team has scored an average of 24 points.

Siemian came in as relief in two other games (0 TD, 2 INTs), but perhaps he and the rest of the team are able to execute better when they prepare all week with the expectation that he will be QB1. 

Also, Belichick has developed quite the reputation for abusing young QBs and forcing career-worst performances out of them, which might’ve made the Jets especially susceptible during this streak because they’ve spent the last six seasons trying to develop young QBs.

If we look at the numbers of the veteran (4+ years experience) Jets QBs against the Patriots versus young (less than four years) Jets QBs vs the Patriots during this losing streak, the numbers are quite mind-boggling. 

The lowest amount of passing yardage thrown by a veteran was 136 by Ryan Fitzpatrick in 2016, but the young QBs have failed to reach that yardage total three different times (Luke Falk 98, Sam Darnold 86, Zach Wilson 77).

Trevor Siemian gives the NY Jets a good chance to beat the Patriots

In the five games in which the Jets have started a veteran, they’ve had a total of eight touchdowns and six interceptions, but in the 10 games where they started a young QB, they’ve only had four touchdowns and 16(!) interceptions.

Those four touchdowns came in three games, meaning that the Jets only score passing touchdowns in 30 percent of the games they start a young QB against the Patriots, versus having at least one passing touchdown in 80 percent of the times a veteran QB has faced the Patriots.

In fact, the vets have had 2+ touchdowns against the Pats three different times, including three touchdowns from Joe Flacco in 2020.

So, it’d be wise for the Jets to start a veteran QB, and that’s exactly what they’re doing with the seven-year pro Trevor Siemian this Sunday. Despite his lack of talent, I don’t expect him to have the fear and confusion that consistently plague the young QBs that attack Belichick’s defense.

If the Jets' defense continues its dominance and allows 15 or fewer points, Siemian has the mind I trust most in this current Jets QB room to finally break the streak.