Coming into the game, the Pats defense looked attractive because of their ability to cause turnovers, and to keep opposing offenses off the field. The Jets, on the other hand, had committed a bunch of turnovers and failed to sustain drives on offense. It was a recipe for fantasy defense success.
Of course, there was a caveat heading into Thursday night’s game. Turnover margins are nice, but a lot of the turnover battle is luck. Fumbles, for instance, are essentially a 50/50 proposition. So a team that has recovered a ton of fumbles on defense is getting lucky with their bounces. There is even a degree of luck to the interception battle. Defenders drop easy interceptions; receivers tip should-be catches to defenders, etc, etc.
That’s part of why you can get screwed by focusing entirely on turnovers for your streaming defenses. But, taking turnover rates into account when considering a team’s drive sustaining ability as a whole isn’t entirely crazy.
It’s essentially this logic, boiled down into numbers: the Belichick is renown for his defensive wizardry, and the Pats have been playing good-to-very-good pass D so far this season. On the other hand, Geno Smith has been struggling. It was weakness against strength.
However, the Jets planned well, and attacked the Patriots OK run defense with Ivory and (lol) Chris Johnson – who managed to average 4.7 yards per carry, which is crazy. As a result, the Jets dominated time of possession by just slightly more than 2:1. That’s quite literally the opposite of what either team has been doing this season so far.
I guess this is where the phrase “any given Sunday/Thursday/Monday” comes from.
The thing to remember is it’s all about the process. If you keep following solid logic (and, ideally logic rooted in the same numbers, reasoning each week, etc), eventually your lineup choices should turn out for the better. Sometimes, though, football happens. Oh well.
FowleBall 
jets>niners
geno>kaep