Nay: Patriots’ luck will come to an end

Cluck ? cluck ? cluck ?That’s the sound of the chickens coming home to roost in Foxborough, Massachusetts. It will resound throughout Gillette Stadium at about 4:15 p.m. on Sunday, when all the good fortune the New England Patriots have enjoyed this season suddenly turns bad.For much of this season, Tom Brady and Bill Belichick have been feasting on rotisserie chicken while Rex Ryan and Mark Sanchez have had to settle for leftover Buffalo wings. No more. On Sunday, all the Pats’ good luck will have flown the coop.Let’s acknowledge that, record-wise, the advantage lies with the Pats for Sunday’s tilt. New England won the AFC East with the best record in the entire conference, a 14-2 mark. The Jets finished second behind the Pats in the East. And while the two squads split a pair of regular-season games, the one that lingers in everyone’s minds is the one where the Jets laid an egg in Foxborough one Monday night to the tune of 45-3.That said, it’s time we recognize that this Patriots team has – at times – been more lucky than good this season. They beat the Green Bay Packers when Aaron Rodgers wasn’t calling the signals ? they beat the Indianapolis Colts when Indy was missing more players than the cast of “Hoosiers” ? and they beat the Jets right after defensive stalwart Jim Leonhard was lost for the season (OK, not even Leonhard’s presence would have done much to halt the humiliation).It is also time to recognize that with their large amount of first-year players, the Pats have been riding a bubble as big as the real-estate market this season ? and as we saw with said real-estate market, bubbles have a tendency to pop. The Pats’ super rookies – Devin From Heaven, Gronk, Aaron Hernandez et al. – have transcended expectations all season. Yet the playoffs are a different kind of atmosphere that favors experience over inexperience. We saw this last weekend, when Rodgers returned to lead the Pack past Michael Vick and Philly. In the Pats’ regular-season wins over Indy and Green Bay, Peyton Manning and Matt Flynn shredded the secondary at times. Things could go from bad to worse in the playoffs.Yes, Brady will still be Brady, and he will be playing with the added motivation of being compared unfavorably with Manning by Ryan. Yet the Jets have shutdown defensive players in Darrelle Revis and Antonio Cromartie who will limit Brady’s effectiveness. And the Jets’ specialty is the run defense ? which might hinder the Pats’ attack of BenJarvus Green-Ellis and Danny Woodhead.At first glance, Ryan and his fellow roosters still look more like the J-E-S-T than the J-E-T-S. They came up 32 points shy the last time they tussled with the Pats. Yet they enter Sunday’s game with some momentum. Knocking off Manning and the Colts, however depleted their roster, is no mean achievement ? and it comes after a regular-season triumph over the Pittsburgh Steelers, who ended up with the No. 2 seed in the AFC.There has been a lot of controversy surrounding the Jets this season ? Ryan’s wife’s feet, for instance, and Sal Alosi’s sideline trip. There has been so much controversy that we forget that the team started 9-2, qualified for the playoffs for the second straight year and won its postseason opener on the road. One wonders whether during “Hard Knocks” breaks, Ryan studied Shakespeare: “I’ll so offend to make offense a skill/Redeeming time when men think least I will.”Come Sunday, the Jets will be the fox in the Pats’ chicken coop, redeeming Ryan and eliminating New England, 27-17.