How a 24-17 win stinks the joint up

The Pats are now 2-0 and have everyone healthy entering the tough game this weekend against the Broncos. But yesterday's victory was hardly inspiring. Some observations:

Good early playing, good blocking and nice to see David Thomas and Daniel Graham used (how many teams get the ball to three different TE's in one game?). Heading into halftime, the Pats had a lead, had also gotten Reche Caldwell and Chad Jackson into the offense, and no turnovers. Good except the D had seemed a little unfocused - a failing that would come back in spades in the 2nd half.

After halftime, the Pats looked much sloppier. Although the D ultimately kept the Pats in the game, they looked really bad with the mistakes and poor tackling. Gotta wrap up. Basic stuff and a little surprising to see the team showing such a lack of focus.

Nice that the front 4 stepped up a bit: the game was won there, with the Jets able to do almost nothing on the ground. Fortunately, with the Jets storming back, the D managed one big play, thanks to Vrabel, who actually did not have his best game:

http://www.projo.com/patriots/content/projo_20060917_key18.1d08ef3e.html

Coming up Sunday night, the team had better get a lot more focused because the Broncos are a decent team and always play us tough.

Elsewhere, I noticed that Kraft, in an interview before the game, hinted that the team's extra cash might be used to bring in some new talent:

Prior to the Branch trade, the Patriots were about $10.3 million under the cap. They were one of six teams to have more than $10 million of cap space.

Kraft: "First of all, the season is not over. Clearly, monies were being held for [Deion Branch's situation]. It's publicly known we were looking at the Ty Law situation at the time. Those two situations would have taken up a fair amount of the money. And there are some other things we'll be able to do potentially between now and the end of the year."

Stay tuned.