New England Patriots Vs New York Jets: Bill Belichick Must Make Good in Red Zone

Last year, two simple words could make Bill Belichick, quarterback coach Bill O'Brien, Tom Brady and the Patriots' offense shake in their shoes: Red zone.

With points at a premium against the bare-knuckle, punch-in-the-mouth defense of Rex Ryan's New York Jets, it's of prime importance that the Patriots score touchdowns every time they get in the red zone.

Big players make big plays, but it will be up to O'Brien to draw up the right ones to make sure the Patriots put up six points, not three.

They only scored touchdowns on 34-of-65 red zone possessions last year and went 3-for-5 from the red area this past week against the Bengals.

What's more, kicker Stephen Gostkowski went 1-for-3 on his field goal tries (despite one of those being an end-of-half prayer from 56-yards out).

The Jets may have an inept offense, but if the game turns into a field-goal-kicking contest, the Jets can stay in the game by forcing bad field position and giving their offense a short field to work with.

And can you imagine what the newspapers would say if the Patriots allowed the Jets to hang around and ultimately gave up a game-winning score to quarterback Mark Sanchez?

The Patriots need to retain a high tempo to keep that from happening.

RM Herold said it best when he said, "Sanchez can't just not lose games, he has to win games. He is the starting freaking quarterback."

But we've all seen what happens when the game is on his shoulder (10-for-29, 119 yards, five interceptions vs. Bills in '09) and even when it's not (10-for-21, 74 yards vs. Ravens last week).

The magic number for Sanchez is 23 passes. The Patriots need to force Sanchez to throw more than that many passes if they want to win on Sunday. If the Jets fall behind early, they will be inclined to put the ball into the uncertain hands of the sophomore quarterback to try and play catch-up.

It's up to O'Brien to force that to happen with high-percentage and diverse play-calling in the red zone.

If not just for a Patriots' win, for the sake of everyone who doesn't want to hear the Jets start their loud-mouthing again.