There are no dominant teams in the NFL. The Jets are doing pretty well at 8-2 and they have good talent, good balance, good coaching and good luck. All of those things are important for successful teams.
I think that this team plays to the level of their competition. It's great we've been able to escape wins while not playing well. I do think that when we play some of the upper tier teams (Pats, Steelers....playoffs) this team will play to their potential.
We had the same run at the same time last year. Remember, we lost 6 of 7 starting at NO. Only this year, we're actually winning all those close games. It is really difficult to play 16 games at full throttle so the mid-season swoon was inevitable. Don't worry about style points yet. That's not going to matter until weeks 15 and on. I'll wait a few weeks before judging their flaws.
1. Agree 2. I think we are getting much better now after a horrendous start to the season 3. Defenses are taking out our run game. It is very obvious. Their game plan is to have Sanchez beat them. We've still managed over 100 yards on the ground in every game I believe. 4. Safety is a need right now. Leonhard and Pool are just ok, but Manning will pick them apart if we ever face him. 5. The same chemistry has transferred over to Santonio/Sanchez. Keller is being taken out of the game recently after his burst few games ago. As a result, Holmes and Braylon have been getting extended looks. 6. Im not sure why one would complain about Sanchez. He's been playing lights out. Defenses have challenged us to beat them in the air, and Sanchez has responded. Why do you the those throws he's making in double coverage? He's been great this year and has completed those throws. He is not lucky, as you put it. Every QB gets that luck, but Sanchez has put the ball where only his receiver can get it. I really think Mark Sanchez is playing as well as any QB in the league lately.
We had 8 wins going into week 17 last season. Think about that. Messavo, as usual, pretty much laid out the rest of my thoughts.
We had 7 wins going in to week 16 and ended up a couple of quarters away from a SB appearance. We already have 8 wins with six more wks to go. People are forgetting how Indy reached the SB last year. They made a comeback, or with in one score on about 8 occasions last year going on to a 14-0 record, n the SB appearance. People see that we are barely winning. I see that this Jets team is capable of winning close games. Playoff games are going to be close and I'd rather be the Jets than the other team in close games. Why? Cuz we can run out the clock on the ground if we are ahead. And our D can step up. If we are behind, Sanchez has shown enough that we can comeback from behind in the closing seconds.
HUH?? He's been great, without Cromartie we'd have a much different record IMO. This year he's been more important then Revis.
Want an example? Look at the 2&7 play 5:23 4th qtr. where Schaub rolls right and darts the ball to Anderson along the sideline (he stepped out of bounds before he caught the ball btw) 35 yard pickup. Revis released Anderson to somebody he thought was supposed to be there...keeping contain on Schaub. Cromartie was nearby doing something on the play...I just can't figure out what. Oh...Revis got singed on the next play for 12 yards another 1st. Houston pulled ahead on the drive with a td. That set us up for a thrilling comeback...so we got that right at least.
I'm very interested with how the Jets play NE and Pitt since they are considered "elite" by most. I've noticed a lot of people say we are playing down to our level of competition. We only have 1 win over a team with a winning record. We haven't had many teams to play up to. We weren't exactly stellar against Baltimore and GB. Still.....beat the Bengals for now.
The NYJ have a top 10 offense and top 10 defense as of right now, and have one of the better special teams units in the league. Yes, they've been winning close games, and haters will attribute it to "luck", but this team hasn't folded in the face of adversity and is extremely talented. Those are characteristic of a contender.
Did anyone listen to Rex's presser today? He really sounds confident this team is going to get much better. He also talks about how the defense has been better in every category to date than last year at this time, with the exception of red zone (which he specifies is important). He mentions that everything they have been doing to build this team has been focused on getting better at the end of the year. Talks about how people kill him for the bye week schedule, but says it's about the end of the season. A lot of "we'll see who's right" at the end of the year comments.
The initial answer is Yes, we are good enough to win a the Super Bowl but there certainly are some serious concerns. My main concerns are the OL. Our run game has been nearly non existent over the last 4 weeks and I think it has a lot to do with the OL not opening big enough holes for the guys to run through. The other thing is I think we are running to the outside way too much. I think our CS sees the same issue with the OL and as an attempt to take the pressure of them we are going outside way too much. I also see we run way to many fake reverses and gimmick plays. The Seminole (or whatever we are calling it) works when you catch teams off balance. We seem to run the same play every time when bring in Smith and teams are ready for it. I also see Sanchez running around the pocket way too much, he just doesn't appear to have time to get set. When he has time he is awesome but when he gets pressured he seems to force it and it usually goes high or is thrown too hard. He is still learning and I like how he realized on a play when he was sacked he was out of the pocket and could have thrown it away and slammed his hands into the field in disgust. The other thing on offense is we need to start finishing drives with TD's. We had so many chances with the great field position yesterday but were only able to manage FGs. The Foster fumble was a perfect example. Great teams put teams away not let them hang around and as we saw yesterday a 16 point lead in the 4th Q was almost not enough. The blueprint is there to beat this team but we have been good at pulling out the wins anyway. If teams are able to utilize their TE and RB's as viable receiving threats our safetys are unable to make a play on the ball. Most teams aren't going to challenge our secondary outside because Revis and Cromartie have been very good at taking WRs out of the game. Look at how useless Johnson was yesterday but Dreesen looked like a Pro Bowl TE. Foster had a big game catching the ball but was basically held in check running it. The Pats make me nervous because unless we can take Hernandez and Douchekowsky out of the game they are going to pick us apart.
This team won't go far playing like it has been recently but I think they will get the issues resolved. If not they are toast.
While this is true,winning like this probably won't happen vs the teams well see in the playoffs. Give the pats 20pts in the 4th during a close game and its over.
