Here Come The Warm Jets

Stripped of any context, 5-3 is a perfectly fine record to have after 8 games. Repeat that in the second half of the year, finish 10-6, and most years you make the playoffs.

Of course, there are a lot of different ways to get to 5-3, ways which suggest how the next eight games are likely to go.

For these Jets, it’s been yet another up-and-down kind of year, just like it was the first two Rex Ryan years. Win two, lose three, win three. At any point in those first eight games it seemed possible to call this team excellent or abysmal. Hard to pin it down. So we’ll just go with what it looks like at this point.

After thoroughly dominating an improved Bills team, this looks like the team we thought we’d see this year. Stifling and punishing defense. Great offensive line play allowing for a balanced offense set up by the run. Top-flight special teams. If the team plays like this,there isn’t anyone they can’t beat.

Can they keep playing like that? Does this one game coming on the heels of two solid wins suggest anything about future performance?

I sure hope so, especially with this Pats game coming on Sunday night, at a time when the Pats look as mortal as they ever have in the Belichick era. This is the kind of game that can propel a team into really interesting places - an intoxicating blend of momentum, confidence, and just general fun for everyone, players, coaches, fans.

The next three games are winnable, not easily, but very doable, and would put them in a very comfortable position in the division if they were to win all three. And 3-0 to start the last eight takes pressure off to be perfect over the last five. Do the opposite, or go something like 1-2, and the season is all but over. 8-8 is worthless, particularly in a year where so many AFC teams have winning records.

And so, just as seems to be the case every week with this team, a hugely important game looms. Here’s hoping for a continuation of what we’ve been seeing, and not yet another strange curve.

This isn’t fun.

Sure, it’s a tough stretch, three games on the road against three good teams. Minus your offensive line anchor for two.

But those are just excuses.

The fact is, they lost all three. Convincingly, uninspiringly, and thoroughly.

I could contort myself and cock my eyebrows and squint to see some positive things. Talk about how it’s still early, and 2-3 isn’t exactly an unrecoverable disaster.

But this isn’t the time for that.

This is the time to realize that this team as presently construed is just average. Not elite. Not ready for the next level. Just average.

This is the time to realize that Mark Sanchez is what he is. He’s not getting better. He’s not making “the leap.” He’s just not great, and still loses games for the team single handedly (like in Baltimore.)

This is the time to realize that Eric Smith isn’t any good as a safety. I don’t care how smart they keep telling me he is. He can’t cover anyone, he isn’t very fast or dynamic, and basically just sucks.

This is the time to recognize that Bart Scott is overrated. He misses tons of tackles. He doesn’t play coverage well. He gambles too much.

This is the time to state that Kyle Wilson is a bust. And Vlad Ducasse is an outright disaster. And they’re paying for those two high draft pick failures right now, not getting any contributions except for negatives.

This is a time for self-scolding, for ever allowing myself to get this excited for a Jets season. What was I thinking? It always comes crashing back down to earth like this. Always.

This just isn’t any fun right now. Which is the worst sin of all. Sure, teams lose games. No one expects 16-0 or even 15-1. But if you’re going to lose, don’t lose like this. Don’t be embarrassed and destroyed and made to look incompetent.

Make it competitive. Make it interesting. But most of all, make it fun.

And, it should go without saying, beating Miami on Monday would be fun. Losing to Sage Rosenfels would not.

I needed time to write about this one. It is so tempting to overreact to a bad loss, to see everything that went wrong and slip into despair and typical “well, I guess we’re not good after all” pessimism. I didn’t want to do that.

So, now it’s several days later. And I still feel uneasy, though certainly less so than on Sunday.

Uneasy because it’s hard to know for sure if the run defense is fixable. Rex Ryan’s history, both all time and with this team over the last two years, suggests that it is. Perhaps this was just one bad game, where a very talented player made them pay dearly for mistakes. Or, maybe this is a sign of things to come, of a defense that will finally be consistently exploited for weaknesses at linebacker and safety.

Uneasy because the offense is still feast or famine, drive by drive, sometimes play by play. Sanchez can look brilliant and boneheaded. The line can be solid or just suck. There is no in between.

Uneasy because the schedule isn’t going to be easy. Two tough games on the road are next. Lose them both, they’re 2-3 and reeling. With no layup game on the horizon, especially if Buffalo is really this good and if Miami isn’t as bad as their record.

Uneasy because there isn’t a “right” way to feel about this team. Not yet. They could fix some of their problems up and be really good. The problems could prove beyond repair, and they could be really depressing to watch.

I will say that I think Rex Ryan has earned the benefit of the doubt here. In both of the last two years the team has gone through rough patches, and in both years they’ve gotten it back together enough to make and win in the playoffs. There’s no reason to think that this one bad loss will snowball into something worse.

Except that it could. Because these are still the Jets. So I’ll stay worried. Very worried.

Not much needs to be said about this game. Which means it was exactly how it should have gone against a team like Jacksonville. Play a bad team at home, you put them away early, take away their confidence.

Best thing about the game was the defense being dominant. The defense needed a game like that.

The worst thing about it is the offensive line. Mangold sprains his ankle, and Hunter has another bad game. Sanchez gets hit a few too many times, in some ways lucky not to be hurt. This is going to be an ongoing concern, it seems.

Now starts the interesting stretch of the schedule. Three games on the road, all against good teams. And with the offensive line concerns, its going to have to be the defense and special teams that win these games, most likely.

It’ll also be a good test for Sanchez. He hasn’t looked perfect by any means in the first two games, though in some areas he’s clearly made improvements (pass accuracy, mostly.)

A good comparison is last year’s Pittsburgh team. Their offensive line was destroyed by injury, yet Roethlisberger was able to make things happen regardless, just enough given their defense. If Sanchez really is good, he can help them overcome Mangold’s absence. If not, it’s going to be real ugly real fast.

Road games in Oakland are always interesting. And though I’m clearly nervous, I also can’t wait to watch and see what happens.

It’s a nice 2-0 start, but the story of this season hasn’t even begun to be written.

So, it’s going to be like this, eh?

Not that we’re not used to this by now. Seems like just about every game the Jets play is in question in the fourth quarter. It’s hard to even remember a game that they just put away early so that the end was just running the clock down and trying not to do anything dumb.

Though I have to say, the “actually winning at the end of these crazy games” part is still hard to get used to. Finding cruel and unusual ways to lose games used to be their specialty. Jets fans have had to develop callouses to blunt the pain. 

I’d rather not have to get used to any of this. I’d love to see a game where they play consistently good, or even consistently bad, as long as it’s not this up and down heart attack stuff.

That all said, a win is a win is a win. And very little that happens on week 1, besides winning and catastrophic injurie, ends up really mattering for the rest of the season.

Things I’ll Think About

The offensive line. It wasn’t a good game for them. Dallas’ defensive line is really good, though, and DeMarcus Ware is a monster. So, was the bad game more because of the competition, or shall we expect more bad games to come? We shall see.

No penalties. Given last year, a bloody miracle. Obviously they won’t repeat this, but can they keep the number down? This still isn’t a well-oiled machine in any phase of the game, so killer penalties kill even worse.

Sanchez. All in all it wasn’t a bad game, but he still looked more like last year’s Sanchez instead of the next-step-in-his-evolution Sanchez I was hoping to see. The line didn’t block well, so he was under pressure a lot against Dallas. If they play better, I hope to see him play better, too. 

There are going to be a lot of ugly wins this year. Just like last year. So it goes.

What Needs to Happen Next

The second game of the year, especially after a win in the first one, can’t really be a must-win. But given that the next three are on the road against good teams, starting 2-0 would be incredibly beneficial. Jacksonville is beatable, especially with Luke McCown at QB. It’s at home. If they want a home playoff game, this is the kind of game they have to win.

In the past, I would assume that because they have to win, that they won’t. Now, I just expect that instead of putting Jacksonville away early, that it’ll be some type of close game with another dumb ending. Progress? 

The game was on ESPN. So I got to watch it. Why did I watch this all the way through? Well, why not?

I liked the quick throw offense they were using with Sanchez. It was expected with two offensive lineman out, but they executed well, and it seems to suit Holmes and Mason. Sanchez was accurate, which is the key thing for him to improve on.

As has been widely noted, I didn’t like Ducasse. He looked bad. Does it mean he’s hopeless? No. Well, I hope not. The rest of the backup offensive line didn’t wow me either.

Kerley looked comfortable returning kicks. Seems like he’ll do well in that area. But God bless Mike Westhoff anyway.

Speaking of, the kickoff game was interesting. They decided to return everything, no matter how deep in the endzone the returner caught it. It pretty much always worked, giving them the ball past the 20. If they do this during the season, it might be an effective tactic, as teams get used to more touchbacks. Could catch some special teams guys napping.

On the other end, Folk rarely got the ball deep in the endzone. At first this bothered me. But as I thought about it, Houston didn’t often get it past the 20. I wonder if this was tactical, too? Force them to return it, try to pin them inside the 20. Something to keep an eye on.

Young guys looked pretty good. New Ellis looks like he’ll have a much bigger impact this year than Old Ellis could have. He’s got good instincts and seems to be involved in plays often. Kerley looks solid. Jeff Cumberland looks like he has some game to him. Faster than I realized, to go along with the size. Kyle Wilson looked better. McKnight looks like a keeper, and Bilal Powell looked decent, too.

Lots of big people. Cumberland. New Ellis. Ropati Piatoua. Plaxico. Patrick Turner. Not sure what it means, but there sure are some big people on this team.

Defense on the short passes to the RBs was awful. Hopefully that was because of the backups. But since safety and linebacker coverage skills are my biggest concerns about the defense, this will bear watching.

I liked the way McElroy bounced back after a rough start. Looks like he could be a really solid backup.

Writing too much more would be silly. It’s preseason game one. Can’t learn too much from it, so no sense overanalyzing. But it was nice to see them back on the field. I’m officially getting psyched.

We’ll try this again this year. Both me, and the team. Last year, some things went right, some things went wrong, and ultimately didn’t end the way we wanted. Both me over here, and the team.

So now that this new season is about to really get going, let’s get going here, too.

Things I Like Going Into The Year

1) Consistency in Key Positions. Same coach and coordinators. Same QB. Same offensive line, for the most part. Same core defensive players. Same RBs. There shouldn’t be any “learning curve” or “getting up to speed” factors this year, except for having Burress replacing Edwards. That means there should be more consistency to the entire team, at least theoretically.

2) Re-Signing the Right Free Agents. Holmes was the right WR to keep out of the three, because he’s the one with the most irreplaceable skills. I think Edwards over Holmes would have been a mistake, and they didn’t overpay for Brad Smith, whom everyone likes, but whose contributions can more likely be duplicated by others. Bringing Wayne Hunter back means they’re not relying on Vlad Ducasse to step in when he’s not quite ready, keeping offensive line consistency. Getting Cromartie back after the Ashomunga deal fell through. Cromartie isn’t as good, but he’s above average, and younger. If he takes to coaching, he could even get better. Sneakily good signing - getting Brodney Pool back. He started off the year last year poorly, but was playing significantly better by the end. Year two in this system should be even better for him.

3) Locking In Core Young Talent. Mangold, Ferguson, Revis, Harris, Sanchez. All relatively young. All under contract for a while. This is how you build a franchise that competes for the Super Bowl every year.

4) Drafting Defensive Linemen. The most talent-deprived part of the team gets a boost of youth, size, and athleticism. Obviously we haven’t seen them play yet, but given Tannenbaum’s track record of more hits than misses, and given what scouts say about Wilkerson and Ellis, I am optimistic.

That Which Displeases Me

1) No Upgrade At Safety. I don’t mind resigning Smith and Pool. I like Leonhard. But this position in general was a problem last year, and the only real change is naming Smith the starter and moving Dwight Lowery over there permanently. If there are random tight ends putting up giant numbers against them this year, kind of like what happened last year, well, I will be displeased.

2) The Unceremonious Release of Jerricho Cotchery. Why did this have to happen?What is the team gaining from just letting him go? Like this guy wasn’t going to kill himself for the team, even if he wasn’t happy about being the #3 receiver? Like he couldn’t have helped mentor young guys like Jeremy Kerley or Patrick Turner? And, you know, he’s only 29, and wasn’t expensive. Doesn’t make sense. Feels like there’s something we’re not being told.

3) The Pass Rush Was Not Addressed. Last year, there was rarely consistent pressure on the quarterback. In particular from the defensive line. I like the two rookies, but neither are pure pass rushers, and they both are rookies, and thus unlikely to be major contributors this year. They’re expecting a healthy Calvin Pace to be the difference. This does not inspire much confidence in me.

4) The Patriots Will Still Be Good. Goddamn that’s annoying. Aren’t they due to have at least one totally crap season soon? Come on already.

The season is upon us. Let us all take a moment to pray and make a sacrificial offering to the fates and the injury Gods, pleading for a year where all injuries are either minor in nature or to minor contributors.

And let’s see how far this year takes us. Them, and me.

It’s increasingly difficult to know what to make of this season.

On the one hand, there’s the 9 wins. Considering Jets history, getting at least 9 wins in a season is nothing to take lightly. Further considering that there are only two losses so far, and those two losses are by a combined 10 points. 9-2 is 9-2.

And yet, 9-2 isn’t always exactly 9-2 with an exclamation point. The Houston game in week 11 should have been put away early, and shouldn’t have required the unbelievable comeback at the end. The Bengals game on Thanksgiving wasn’t remotely pretty, even if the defense did play dominantly in the second half.

On the other hand, the team is statistically good. Second in the league in rushing yards per game. Tenth in points scored per game. Fourth in points per game allowed. Fourth in rushing yards allowed per game. +7 in turnover differential for the season.

And yet, watching all of these game, it’s hard to call this a really good team. There is certainly talent, and the team can win with different aspects each week. But we haven’t seen a really complete game in all phases since the Buffalo game. One week the offense looks miserable. The next week it’s the defense. The next week Nick Folk misses a bunch of kicks. One week there’s no pass rush. The next week Sanchez looks confused. There’s too many penalties every week.

On the other hand, being able to win in a variety of ways speaks to a balanced team, not overly dependent on any one player or aspect of the game. If the offense has a bad game, the defense can win it. And vice versa. Along with the special teams. Balanced teams like this have a really good chance of doing well at the end of the year, and in the playoffs.

And yet, the team makes too many mistakes. The penalties. The still-inconsistent decision making of Mark Sanchez. The baffling offensive playcalling. The inability to get a consistent pass rush from the defensive line. The penalties. The abysmal red zone offense, leaving tons of points on the field. You can overcome mistakes when you play teams like the Lions and Bengals. Not so much against the Steelers or Patriots in January.

So now what?

I guess all we can do is wait and see. Maybe the Patriots game on Monday night will bring out the best in the team and we’ll finally see that complete game against a good team we’ve been waiting all year to see. Maybe they’ll fall apart and get blown out.

Even if they do, it only means 9-3. So if there’s one bad game, does it really mean anything?

These next four games, including the Patriots, are tough. Three on the road, at New England, Pittsburgh, and Chicago. Home against the Dolphins. 

Realistically, 2-2 over that stretch would be fine. Except depending on how they get there, even 3-1 could feel just as uneasy and unsatisfying as these last four or five games.

So what to make of all of this? 

Like I said, I have no idea. None. I’ll just have to grab a bottle of Pepto and a bottle of liquor and maybe a baby bottle full of chocolate milk and just go with it.

How many more games like this do I have in me? I have no idea. I do know that I’ll live ten fewer years just because I’m a Jets fan.

Another week, another close, frustrating, and ultimately exhilarating game. More penalties. More maddening inconsistency from Mark Sanchez. More baffling coaching decisions. More points left on the field.

On a real-time, in-the-moment, play-by-play basis, there’s no way this team is as good as their record. This team is 7-2? Really?

Then again, nobody in the NFL is any good this year. Nor are they at all predictable. The Patriots get killed by the Browns then destroy the Steelers? Sure, okay. The Giants destroy everyone then lose to Jon Kitna and Jason Garrett? Right, got ya. Are the Falcons actually good? The Bears? The Ravens?

All that to say, in this context, sure, why aren’t the Jets legitimate? They certainly don’t play perfectly, and have yet to have a really complete, top-to-bottom, all three phases succeeding type of game. But it does say something that a team can pull out wins on the road even when they haven’t played all that well.

There are some major concerns, of course:

1- There is no pass rush. None. The defensive line is great against the run, but get no pressure on the QB. And the blitzes aren’t really working this year.

2- The penalties. It’s been covered to death, but you don’t win playoff games if you’re getting 9 penalties a game.

3- The points left on the field. The Jets can’t convert in the red zone, and too often get field goals (or miss them, as was the case in Cleveland.) That Cleveland game should have been put away early in the second half - it never should have had to come down to Nick Folk having to kick a 24-yd field goal. Even if he had made it the drive was ultimately a failure. Good teams get TDs when they are in the red zone more often than not.

4- The safeties are suspect. Brodney Pool hasn’t impressed me. Neither has Jim Leonhard nor Eric Smith. I never thought I’d actually miss Kerry Rhodes, but I do. Need more dynamic play out of that position in this defense, and we’re not getting it.

5- The feast-or-famine nature of Mark Sanchez. He’s getting better, he’s not hopeless by any means, and showed some impressive traits at the end of these last couple of games. But lets us not forget that these games wouldn’t be close at the end if he was more consistent during the rest of the game. He still doesn’t see the whole field well, makes some really dumb decisions, and can be rather inaccurate.

6- At various points in each game, I have no idea what Rex Ryan and Brian Schottenheimer are thinking, and neither does anyone else, and neither do they. It’s not completely abysmal (this is reminding no one of, say, Bruce Coslet) but, damn, you know, it’d be nice to not have to say “what are they DOING right now?” every damned game.

That sure is a lot of concerns for a 7-2 team. Especially after the team just won a game in rather dramatic fashion.

I suppose I could ignore all the concerns and talk about Sanchez and his ability to escape the rush, or that incredible catch by Cotchery after he pulled his groin, or how impressive that opening drive of the third quarter was. But that doesn’t feel right, to ignore the problems and play up the good parts.

You know what would make us all feel a lot better about all of this? Blow out a couple of the mediocre teams they play upcoming, like Houston and the Bengals. Stop with these close games and near-losses.

In this year’s NFL? Not likely to happen. I’m sure every game will bring its own set of unique frustrations and near death experiences. I suppose this is what makes it fun.

And this is fun, right? Right? Right?