Someone else pointed out that defining success is the tricky thing here. Assessing the meaning of the loss and how it relates to that definition is the key. If you felt going into and through this season that success is another wild card berth, without winning the division, with NE still on top, with road games against Pitt and the Bears and first a game against Miami where hated Miami has a chance to kick the Jets when they are down, with it 9-3 now but 10-6 a significant possiblity, then being 9-3 now might qualify as success. If you felt on the other hand that this was the year the Jets would get by NE with a sweep, setting the stage for not only winning the division but drawing the bye with a real shot at winning the SB, finally, then 9-3 does not seem to fit that definition of success.
You're forgetting that there is still 1/4 of the season left, us and New England now split 1-1, both of us 3-1 in the AFC East with two division games left, both of us with some tough opponents left. If the season ended with Monday's game you would be correct, but it doesn't. The goal is still the division/bye and possible 1 seed, and being 9-3 with said tie-breakers as they are makes that attainable. The way people are carrying on you would think the season did end Monday night, it did not.
Seriously, it was one game against the best QB in the league and probably the best coach on the ROAD. Now if the Fins win, hit the panic button. I have ZERO respect for that team.
The reason we keep track of tie-breakers all year is the most likely scenario of splitting with New England. Sure, sweeping them would have been great but that's not what happened so you go from here. If you just judge by Monday night nothing looks good or possible, but maybe New England lets down a bit after the big win. Who knows? It could come down to Buffalo or Miami knocking one of us off and fucking up the whole deal, that's why the games are played. In terms of baseball season it's not even September yet.
How did you get from my post that I have forgotten there is still a quarter of the season left???? I even talked about remaining games in my post! Perhaps you should try again. The rest of your post merely recites the theoretical. And leaves out what was lost for the Jets' season with that loss Monday night. Let me be clear - is it impossible at this point for the Jets to go to the SB and win? Of course not. But how much less likely does it look like now as compared to before Monday night, when many here including myself thought the Jets would win? I have to say much less likely. As is so often the case in football, we will know quite a bit more after the Miami game.
The relative success changes. I didn't see the Pats being 9-2 heading into the second game. If I had been told that the Jets would be 9-2 going into that game in August I would have assumed that the Jets had a game or two lead in the division. I thought this year would be the Jets year to pass the Pats but I didn't anticipate the Pats being this good. It is tough for me to hold that against the Jets.
You addressed the other games but you're all gloom and doom. New England has to visit Chicago too, and host Green Bay which is a game we lost. They also have the same division games left that we do, which are always tough regardless of the records, so I'm trying to talk you off the ledge while you're pondering 10-6.
If it was a close hard fought game that the Jets ended up losing by 10 or even 14, I would agree. They lost by 6 touchdowns and did not show up for what everyone, including THIER COACH, called the biggest game of the year. If that, combined with the way the team has played the last month, does not tell you that this was not just some anomolous loss, then you're not paying attention.
We've been having the same conversation for years now. The old argument about the Chad years being a round or two and done always left out the fact that we have New England in our division. Which makes it a lot harder to get a home game or bye, always making the road to the Super Bowl that much harder.
I really feel Rex freaked out so early in this game (challenging was a freakout, going for it on 4th was a freakout despite getting it and kicking the FG was a freakout.) He coached scared early on and the team played scared from here on out. If I'm blaming one person for the loss (and I'm not, total team loss if I ever saw one) it'd have to be Rex.
The math going forward is the same if we lost in OT or 45-3. If you've ever paid attention to NFL football for any period of time you've learned that what happens one week often has no bearing on what happens the next. Again, 1/4 of the season is left, a lot to be decided. Come playoff time nobody is going to care what happened on December 6. We got crushed in New England in late November last year, too.
45-3 is a lot different than 31-14...this will take A LOT of mental fortitude to overcome, which I believe the Jets have. But let's not make this out to be "just another game." The team was embarrassed. I personally feel it was a good thing - a wakeup call, if you will...to just shake this team out of its doldrums.
The Pats are definitely better than I had hoped, but up until this past Monday I did not think they were good enough to beat the Jets 45-3. Now we know better, and for that, part of that blame does go against the Jets.
So you think if the Jets had only lost 31-14, that would not be embarrassing? Where is the limit? Losing by 14, 20, 30, 40?
Losing by 17 is not embarrassing, it's a bad game. Losing by 42? Embarrassing. You really think people would've freaked out as badly if we lost 31-14? This was a total team loss with literally not one player playing well. That's alarming.
I tend to agree. In anything, if your work habits are eroding little by little and you keep getting away with it you don't notice. Then something like this happens and you re-evaluate what you're doing. It's human nature. Whatever the score was the other night it was a loss. In pro sports you lose sometimes, we'll learn a lot about our coach and QB--and everyone else--the next few weeks. To your other point I disagree about Rex. I don't think he was scared, if anything too much confidence in our kicker. I didn't like the challenge but he made up for that going for the 4th down and getting it. He wanted to match the three New England put up and survive the initial punch, it didn't go that way but I don't think he was coaching scared.
