http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/080904 Prediction No. 10: I'm going to nail my annual sleeper this season. After a two-year cold streak (St. Louis in 2006, Atlanta in 2007), I shook things up in my front office, fired some magazines, changed my coffee, converted my garage into an office and now I'm ready to reclaim my throne as the King of the Sleeper Pick. And by "sleeper," I mean, "a previously crappy team that somehow goes 10-6 or 11-5 thanks to some much-needed new blood, an easy schedule, a few breaks and everyone looking the other way." I'm bending the rules a little to accommodate this year's sleeper pick ? J ? E ? T ? S ? JETS JETS JETS!!!!! Maybe they aren't sleeping right now after an underrated finish last year (they hung tough in 10 of their last 11 games), two excellent drafts in a row and a much-needed free-agency splurge (Alan Faneca, Damien Woody, Tony Richardson, Kris Jenkins, etc.). It's a solid team with a solid fink -- er, coach. And regardless of how you feel about Favre at this point of his career, whether he gives them a "B-plus," "B," "B-minus" or "C-plus," it's still going to be better than the "D-minus" they got from the Pennington/Clemens combo last season. It's like replacing Josh Hartnett as the lead of a half-decent action movie with Harrison Ford -- he's a little washed up, but he's still Harrison Ford, and more importantly, he's not Josh Hartnett. So, how can they be a sleeper? First, their fans put on a phenomenal display of lowering expectations and adamantly maintaining the Jets will suck. Can you blame them? Of course not. They root for the Jets! That's the team that officially replaced the Red Sox in my buddy Blueboy's award-winning 2001 analogy, "Being a Red Sox fan is like being a 120-pound man in a maximum security prison." When your fan base expects the worst at all times, doesn't that qualify you for sleeperdom? More important, the Jets will lose to Miami's Pennington in Week 1 as every Jets fan says, "I knew he'd come back to haunt us!" They'll lose a heartbreaker to the Pats in Week 2 when Favre kills them with an ill-advised pick in the final three minutes. Then they'll go to San Diego for Week 3 and get killed in the first half. And that's when three things will happen: every Jets fan will divest themselves emotionally from the 2008 season, the Chargers will relax like they always do, and the 0-2, trailing-by-17 New York Jets will officially qualify as a sleeper as everyone writes them off. And then, boom! The Jets come roaring back and pull off an improbable upset. (Norv Turner Face Alert! Norv Turner Face Alert!) They will finish 11-5, with nine of those wins coming against sub-.500 teams. Any time someone nearly goes into a coma during the first three weeks, improbably survives and bounces back with double-digit wins, that's a sleeper. So there. This scenario would be nice. Except the week one loss that is.
I'm glad someone is giving us props, even if it is kind of tongue in cheek, but Bill Simmons is absolutely stupid. One of the worst writers I've ever seen. His shtick is to make anti-NY jokes, suck off the Boston teams and make outlandish statements. How does anyone take him serious?
"They just won a Super Bowl in which they toppled an 18-0 team after its quarterback, who famously turtled any time he felt pressure during his entire career, somehow broke away from two potential sacks, bought himself two extra seconds while his offensive line committed a variety of holding infractions that the NFL keeps forgetting to digitally erase from the replay, then heaved a pseudo-Hail Mary to his fourth-string receiver, who had four catches in the regular season, only for this one play, that same receiver somehow found the strength to haul in the game-saving catch even though it was three feet over his head, trap the football against his helmet as he fell backward with a safety molesting him from behind, maintain control of the football even as he was crashing on his back, and somehow avoid ever having the football touch the turf." The guy is still a 1st class whiner
That's one of his better articles, you take it for what it is coming from a Pats fan. But going by his last two sleepers he's probably jinxed us and likely did it on purpose.
the season scenario is not good...he is sayin we only make the a run because we beat teams that suck...man...I really hope the Jets beat the shit out of some of these better teams this year...but im sure theyll be some excuse if they do
i like simmons writing (its pretty funny usually, even if he is a big time boston homer) but i really think he intends to jinxs us with this one. we need to break the curse
Simmons has always been one of my favorite ESPN writers...he's especially sharp on the mindset of teams with bitter, whiny fans...probably because he's from Boston and loves baseball. Anyway, ouch on the comparison to Sox fans but its just so true. Jets fans = Super optimistic heading into '07 and we go 4-12....Jets fans = Not so optimistic for '08 so...12-4?
That's true. I remember going into 98 and a lot of people talking about how we could've picked up a blind man to play QB and it would've been a better decision than Vinny. Then 1999 was THE year...
