NY Jets 31 New England 20

Marty Lyons

The 88 season kicks off with Division rivals squaring off.  The big story line of this one was the Jets running game as Vick and McNeil ran for 158 combined yards.  Still the major difference in the game was the 1 turnover as Marty Lyons picked off a screen pass at the Patriots 17, with the score 10-7. The jets scored from there and the 10 point lead proved to big to catch up. The NE special teams also had a rough game as the Field goal kicker had a FG and Xtra point blocked, and the Punter also had a kick blocked! New England would make a game of it closing to 24-20 with under a minute to go.  NE did not recover the onside kick, did I say special teams had a rough outing? Then on 3rd down with 40 seconds left and no time outs, NE looking for a kneel down to finish game got fooled and O'Brien threw a 45 yard TD to Shuler, interesting play.
Brian