After 8 games of the season the Jets sit with the exact record I thought they were going to have, 5-3. The path to that record is highly different than what I expected however.Week 1 I thought was basically a must win. I know it's ridiculous to say week 1 is a must, but this team needed to get off the right foot and they were playing the lowly Dolphins. They won the game but almost choked it away and as a fan you came away feeling well that just wasn't good enough, the Dolphins are going to be bad this year. Well, we were wrong. At 4-4 the Dolphins are not a miserable team. They have as good a chance to push for the division as the other 3, and potentially the last game of the season at the Meadowlands will be huge.
Then the next two weeks I predicted they were going to lose and they did, it was just the way they lost that left a sour taste in the mouth. When Tom Brady went down as a Jet fan you had to figure that this was the time. This was our time to knock the snot out of them. This was our time to take advantage of the Pats playing an inexperienced or ill-equiped QB. And well it wasn't to be. The rush defense, which has since come on to be a massive strength, was abused by of all people Lamont Jordan.
The following week they went out to San Diego and faced off against a reeling 0-2 team coming off a screw job in Denver. The Jets looked poised for success after an pick 6, but that lasted less than a blink of an eye. Before you knew it Kris Jenkins was out, Philip Rivers was hitting everybody in site. Brett Favre was throwing tds to the other team and the Jets were blitzed out of the building.
The next week the Jets hosted the Cardinals forced a billion turnovers, Brett Favre looked like a touchdown machine and as a Jet fan you regained some of the confidence you lost the previous weeks. And into the bye week at 2-2 as expected.
The 3 games following the bye week included 3 miserable miserable teams. The first the Bengals they started off with a beautiful Favre fumble for a td but were able to cruise to a relatively easy victory. Not really confidence building but a victory.
The next week the Jets got to make their yearly voyage to Oakland. An Oakland team who was in shambles after firing their coach. An Oakland team with no semblance of structure. An Oakland team that two weeks later only 76 yards and had a total of 3 fucking first downs. And what do they do? They lay a big fat egg. A massive pile of shit on the field. Sure they score a late field goal to send it into OT. But in OT they did nothing absolutely nothing and they deserved to lose to one of the shittiest teams in the NFL. And that certainly brought down the confidence another notch.
The following week they made Tyler Thigpen look like a Hall of Famer, Brett Favre helped spawn Arm Punt Formations, but somehow they came back and won the game. It was a victory that lowered confidence but still a victory. They sat at 4-3 1 game out of the division. Not bad.
And then last week happened. Sure I haven't been a believer in Buffalo at any point this season, but they were 5-2 and at home. The Jets were underdogs and with the exception of the first Bills drive and Mangini's brain fart turned gold they completely outplayed the Bills. If not for Brett deciding he wanted to make it interesting by throwing a td to Buffalo this game would have been a breeze.
And that leads us to this week and what is to occur. 5-3 was expected, the way they got there certainly was not. The Jets have a legitimate shot of winning the division. Will they? I have no idea. One week they go and blow the doors off the Cardinals and Bills both division leaders at the time. And others they show up completely flat against the Chiefs and Raiders. I have no idea what is going to happen. This team could potentially finish 11-5 and win the division or they could finish 8-8 and miss the playoffs. Am I confident at all in this team? Not really. But do I have hope for success this year? Absolutely. Thanks again Bernard Pollard.
Comments