The game no one remembers

It has been played ad nauseam. Not Stephen Hill's costly drop in the Jets' Oct. 2012 loss to the New England Patriots.

No, you know exactly what I'm talking about here.

Mark Sanchez's butt fumble on Thanksgiving night against the Pats has been shown approximately 514,212 times on the Worldwide Leader by my last count.

The play that just kept giving will probably go down in football lore as even more embarrassing than Leon Lett's gaffe that also came on Thanksgiving, back in 1993.

Back to Stephen Hill though.

With a little more than two minutes left in last year's Week 7 contest at Gillette Stadium, the Jets trailed the Patriots 23-20, driving and attempting to come back from a 10-point fourth quarter deficit. 

On 3rd and 3 with 2:15 left on the clock, Sanchez stuck a pass on the numbers of the rookie Hill, who dropped it. Had Hill held on at the Patriots' 14 yard-line, he would have given the Jets a first down approaching the two-minute warning, as well as a chance to both score the game-winning touchdown and wind the clock down.

Instead a wild series of events played out in the final two minutes. After a Nick Folk field goal tied the game at 23, Devin McCourty fumbled the kickoff. The Jets' offense again couldn't run the clock out, settling for three and giving the Patriots the ball back. 

Big mistake there. Tom Brady of course got the Pats into position for a Stephen Gostkowski game-tying field goal, which sent the game to overtime.

On the first drive of extra time, the Jets' defense held the Patriots to a field goal, giving the offense the ball and another chance. But Sanchez was strip-sacked, turning the ball over and ending the game.

Not a win but far from hapless either.

Far from 49-19, the Week 12 final score.

No one remembers Hill's costly drop a month before the fumble that will live in infamy. 

No one can forget Sanchez's blunder that thrust a new buzz term into the sports lexicon. 

The vast majority remember the Pats' 45-3 thumping in Dec. of 2010 with the AFC East lead on the line, not the Jets' 16-9 home win early in the 2009 season.

While the Pats have won the last four meetings, the Jets were actually 4-2 in the six before those. 

But when your missteps are as lofty as the Jets' have been lately in this rivalry, no one is going to remember your close calls or even triumphs. 

Stephen Hill probably knows that already. Now with Mark Sanchez out, the 700-pound gorilla of embarrassment to hide behind is gone, so everyone in green and white should be on notice.