Dee Milliner had two calls go against him in the first half of tonight's 13-10 Jets loss at New England.
The first was a booth challenge of his seemingly smart and timely forced fumble on WR Julian Edelman right after he caught a Tom Brady slant at the top of the second quarter, with fellow Jets first-round draft choice Sheldon Richardson recovering the ball. The reversal made it an incompletion. Nothing Dee could do about that.
The second call was Rex Ryan's decision to bench Milliner, his starting corner for the first two games, for the second half. It was a call that the young man from Alabama understood.
"I was fine with it. He felt the need to make that decision," said Milliner. "I made a couple of mistakes on a couple of calls. ... I've just got to learn from my mistakes. I know I was getting the ball thrown on me. I'm behind my coach 100 percent."
"This young man is going to be a tremendous player, there's no doubt," Ryan said. "But as I told him, I said, 'You know, Dee, I want you to sit on the sidelines and I want you to watch.' And sometimes when you do that, it's the best thing for you. And so we replaced him with Kyle [Wilson] and [Darrin] Walls.
"I'm trying to win a game. I'm going to play who I think gives us the best chance to win. He's going to be a great player, but at that time I went with the veteran."
Extra Points
Edelman, with WR Danny Amendola and TEs Rob Gronkowski and Zach Sudfeld all deactivated with injuries, had to come up big as the Patriots' No. 1 target, and he did with 13 receptions for 78 yards. That's the second-most catches by a Jets opponent since 1992. The most was by Wes Welker, who had 15 receptions for 192 yards at Gillette in 2009. S Antonio Allen led the defense and tied for the game lead with eight tackles. ... The only sack of Brady was by backup D-lineman Leger Douzable. ... Chandler Jones got to Geno Smith for two sacks. ... O-linemen D'Brickashaw Ferguson and Willie Colon were ejected late as the result of the melee after Aqib Talib's second interception return. They're the first Jets players to be ejected since James Ihedigbo was ejected during the 2009 home game against the Bills.
