The Jets defense did something this afternoon against New England that no other team has been able to do against Tom Brady and the undefeated Patriots so far. Brady and his offense entered the week scoring at will on most teams, posting over 38 points per game.

The Jets defense, however, held the NFL’s best team to a season-low 20 points, with the offense accounting for 13 of the points.

“People said they were going to score 70, so we just came out definitely excited and we pretty much held them in check and played a good game today,” safety Kerry Rhodes said. “If you have pride, you’re definitely not going to let or want them to do that to you.

“We came out and fought hard and we kept the game close. We had a chance to make plays to make it even closer but we couldn’t.”

Brady was coming off of a four-touchdown performance against the Steelers last week and had thrown at least two touchdown passes in all but one of the Patriots’ 13 previous wins. Against the Jets, he had no TD passes.

“Defensively, there were a lot of good things today,” head coach Eric Mangini said. “Just in terms of the passing game and running game and things that we were trying to do, I thought they did a nice job.”

Many critics even anticipated Brady breaking Peyton Manning’s single-season passing-touchdown record of 49 this game by posting five TDs against the Jets.

“I think the defenses had the upper hand today,” Brady said in his postgame news conference. “We didn’t execute well enough to put drives together.”

As if the Green & White needed any more reason to get fired up for their annual battle in Foxboro, Mass., the Jets defense was fueled by talks of the Patriots outscoring them by dozens upon dozens of points.

“With all this stuff going on, we were tired of hearing about it,” said Rhodes. “We had heard enough of it Monday to last the whole week. It was just getting old and irritating and we just wanted to come out here and prove ourselves on the field. We’re grown men. We don’t want to hear that we’re going to come out here and get beat, 70-0. We’re an NFL team, we’re not a college team or a high school team. We took it personal so we came out and fought.

“That’s the mentality of this team and the mentality of our head coach. He likes to come out and fight and he’s aggressive and he doesn’t like to take anything from anybody so that’s the way we like to approach the game.”

The Green & White held Brady to a season-low 140 yards on 14-for-27 passing. He also threw an interception to rookie cornerback Darrelle Revis, just his sixth of the season and second since early November. Keeping Brady oblivious to how they would attack him was a high priority for coordinator Bob Sutton’s unit.

“I think we did a good job of moving around and making Brady’s checks harder for him,” explained Rhodes. “We didn’t make it simple. He had to go through a lot of progressions just to make a play so that was probably the biggest thing we did.”

“We were trying to give as little info as possible,” Mangini said. “Tom does an excellent job when he knows what you're in and what he can expect of beating the coverage or getting the offense in the right play. So part of that is the ability to not give too much information and make it as difficult as possible for him to make those reads.”

The Jets front line shifted about as Brady settled under center. Oftentimes, just one lineman would be the only defensive representative in a three-point stance on the line while his teammates walked around behind, hiding any formation that Brady might pick up on.

“If Tom can see the picture and if he can figure it out, then he’ll beat it,” said LB David Bowens, who scored his first career touchdown on a blocked punt return in the second quarter. “What we wanted to do was to eliminate making it easy for him. We wanted to walk around and give him a different look almost every play so he wouldn’t be able to key on what we were doing.”

Another priority was keeping WR Randy Moss at bay, which was successfully done, except for a late 46-yard completion, by Rhodes and the secondary.

Revis wasn’t concerned about facing Moss again, who put up 183 receiving yards and a touchdown against him and the Jets in the Patriots' opening-day 38-14 win at the Meadowlands. The rookie, like Rhodes, has been pestered all week with questions regarding "Spygate," the historic pointspread and the possibility of ending the Patriots' winning streak.

“We came into the week just focused on the Patriots,” said Revis, who now has three interceptions. “It’s a big game for us and there’s a lot of things that were going on out on the field, but what we wanted to focus on getting a win. Basically, we came out with a fight and we fought hard.”

Revis, Rhodes, Hank Poteat and company held Moss out of the end zone for only the second game this season and the 6’4” receiver accounted for five receptions and 79 yards.

It wasn’t until 1:08 left in the first half when the Patriots offense finally lit up the scoreboard. Running back Laurence Maroney, who had a game-high 104 rushing yards, scored from 1 yard out two plays after Jets punter Ben Graham’s punt was blocked by Kelley Washington and downed at the 3.

“We know this team is rich with character,” Rhodes said. “We’re not going to let any team push us around.”