3 Patriots players NY Jets should target in the game plan

The hallmark of any successful NFL game plan is the exploitation of the opponent’s weaknesses.

The New York Jets are 7.5-point underdogs heading into Sunday’s pivotal road contest against the New England Patriots. It makes sense, as the Patriots are the more talented and proven team on paper.

After all, the Patriots are the defending AFC champions, while the Jets just picked up their first win against an above-.500 team since Week 9 of 2024. New England is the better team until proven otherwise.

If games were played on paper, the Patriots would have this one in the bag. The cool thing about sports, though, is that games are played in real life.

And on the football field, it only takes a costly blunder or two for a favored team to cede its advantage.

When a roster is comprised of 53 players, not every player on that roster will be a standout, even on the league’s best teams. That’s why it’s critical for underdog teams to aggressively target the weakest players on a strong team’s roster. If those players can be exploited to a high degree, it could be enough to negate the favored team’s advantages across the rest of the field.

Without further ado, here are three Patriots whom the Jets should build their game plan around exploiting.

DT Cory Durden (No. 94)

New England’s starting defensive tackle duo features former Philadelphia Eagles star Milton Williams and former New York Giants backup Cory Durden, both of whom have started all five games for the Patriots.

When these two players are on the field together, it’s clear whose side would be preferable for New York to run toward.

Williams is one of the most formidable interior defenders in the game, joining the Patriots on a four-year, $104 million contract last offseason. Since entering the league in 2021, he ranks 13th among defensive tackles with 33 tackles for loss.

Durden, though, was a career backup before this season. He joined the Patriots in 2025 on a two-year, $2.2 million deal after playing just eight games for the Giants and Rams over his first two NFL seasons, starting none of those.

The Patriots promoted Durden to the starting lineup over Christian Barmore this season. Durden has played 48% of the team’s defensive snaps, ranking second behind Williams (68%), while Barmore is in third at 40%.

Despite his promotion to the starting lineup, Durden has played up to his contract and career track record. Across 144 defensive snaps, he has more missed tackles (3) than defensive stops (2). His 39.2 run defense grade at Pro Football Focus ranks 100th out of 114 qualified defensive tackles, while his 22.8 tackling grade is the worst.

The Patriots’ defense looks substantially worse when Durden is on the field. According to RayCarp, the Patriots allow 0.106 EPA (Expected Points Added) per play when Durden is on the field compared to -0.106 when he is off. The -0.212 swing ranks 214th out of 243 defensive linemen.

Yep, this is a guy that New York should be going after.

Durden rotates between both sides of the line, but he more frequently lines up on the defense’s left (63%). That would put him across from the stronger side of the Jets’ offensive line, which features right guard Joe Tippmann and right tackle Armand Membou.

The Jets would be wise to build their game plan around running to Durden’s side, especially when he is across from the right side of the Jets’ offensive line. Part of that can be placed on Geno Smith’s plate, too.

Offensive coordinator Frank Reich credited Smith for checking into the play that became Braelon Allen’s go-ahead touchdown run in the fourth quarter of last week’s win over Cleveland. Smith should be encouraged to check into runs when Durden is on the field. His production this season makes him an unusually exploitable liability for a starting defensive tackle, and the Jets need to exploit that in a game where it will be imperative to sustain long drives and keep the Patriots off the field.

LB Christian Elliss (No. 53)

The Jets would love to get their talented tight end duo going in the passing game.

First-round rookie Kenyon Sadiq showed his potential with a seven-catch, 105-yard performance against the Lions in Week 3, but across his other four games, Sadiq has seven catches for 41 yards. Meanwhile, 2025 second-round pick Mason Taylor has just five catches for 22 yards in three games.

New York can unleash them by targeting linebacker Christian Elliss, who starts alongside captain Robert Spillane.

The former UDFA is handling an every-down starting role for the first time in his six-year career. It hasn’t gone well, to put it mildly.

Elliss has been charged with allowing 263 yards on throws into his coverage, per Pro Football Focus, the second-most among linebackers. Worse than the yardage total is how efficiently he has allowed the yards to be racked up; when Elliss is the primary defender, opponents have completed 22 of 23 passes (95.7%) for 263 yards (11.4 yards per attempt), one touchdown, and no interceptions.

Altogether, Elliss is allowing a 128.8 passer rating, the second-highest mark among linebackers who have faced at least 20 targets. For perspective, that’s more than 11 points higher than Tom Brady’s passer rating in 2007.

When a defender makes opponents look better than ’07 Brady by throwing his way, it’s probably a good idea to cook up some concepts that are designed to isolate him.

RG Ben Brown (No. 77)

The Patriots lost their starting right guard, Mike Onwenu, to a broken ankle in Week 3. That leaves them with backup Ben Brown at right guard, and he was a weak link for the unit over the last two weeks.

From Weeks 4-5, Brown posted a 52.9 overall grade at Pro Football Focus, ranking 59th among 72 qualified guards. The struggles came in both phases, as he ranked 58th as a run-blocker and 43rd as a pass-blocker. Brown allowed four pressures, committed two penalties, and struggled to open running room to his side, as the Patriots rushed for just two first downs to the right side on 15 attempts.

In fact, the Patriots clearly tried to avoid running behind Brown over the last two games, calling 37 rushes to the left versus 15 to the right, a 71/29 split. That is a drastic and blatant shift from the first three games, when they ran 31 times to the left and 40 times to the right, a 44/56 split.

New England’s seismic shake-up to the run scheme is an obvious sign of how little they trust Brown. The Jets should do what they can to exploit a starter who isn’t trusted by his coaching staff.

In the pass game, New York should try to isolate Brown as much as they can. It would be a smart idea to send blitzes that are overloaded to his side, the intention being to force the center and right tackle to each pick up a respective defender, preventing them from helping Brown. Running stunts at him would also be a great way to put him in the spotlight.

Against the run, the Jets should lean into the Patriots’ tendencies over the last two weeks by primarily deploying their best run defenders and any extra box defenders to the offense’s left (the defense’s right). Given that the Patriots have been leaning heavily toward running to the left side since they had to turn their backup right guard, it would make sense for the Jets to exploit that tendency by beefing up the side of the line that New England is likelier to run toward.

If the Patriots come out on Sunday and show a more balanced attack early on, the Jets can adjust. But when there is a two-game sample of a team running to one side more than 70% of the time, with that sample directly aligning with a crucial offensive line injury, the opponent should build their game plan accordingly.

Stacking up against New England’s left side runs and daring them to run behind Brown seems like a prudent strategy.