MIAMI, Dec. 2 ? The Jets spent last week pretending, at least publicly, that being considered the underdog against a winless team did not bother them. Privately, many of them were seething. On the eve of one of the least-anticipated matchups of the season, the subject came up in team meetings, in the locker room and in hotel room. History Predicted to lose to the 0-11 Miami Dolphins, many Jets felt disrespected, slighted, even a bit embarrassed. So when they finished a 40-13 shellacking of Miami on Sunday at Dolphin Stadium, they did not celebrate so much as stew. ?That goes to show that the people that sit behind the booth don?t know what they?re talking about,? defensive lineman Shaun Ellis said. ?It just frustrates me, that talk. It?s just disgusting. That?s why I don?t even watch that stuff. They?re just trying to boost their egos.? Of course, the Jets have not exactly been juggernauts this season. They lugged two victories into the game, with one of them coming against Miami. But this was not the same Dolphins team; it was missing its starting quarterback (Trent Green), its star running back (Ronnie Brown) and its top receiver (Chris Chambers) from the Jets? 31-28 victory on Sept. 23. Still, the Dolphins were at home, desperate to win, and, at least according to Las Vegas oddsmakers, slightly favored. ?We?d like to say it didn?t bother us, but. ...? Jets receiver Brad Smith said, trailing off before whispering. ?That wasn?t right.? If only the Jets could play the Dolphins 16 times each season. On a sunny afternoon under nearly cloudless skies ? the backdrop for a game that turned ugly later on ? they won for the fourth straight time against Miami. Everything that had gone wrong for the Jets this season went right. The running game that often appeared to walk accounted for 163 yards and 3 touchdowns. The Jets ran for only two touchdowns in the first 11 games. Leon Washington scored twice, the first on an 18-yard scamper that gave the Jets a 7-0 lead; the second a 12-yard dash that capped the victory. In between, the Jets scored 26 points ? more than they scored in nine other games this season. Mike Nugent kicked four field goals between 26 and 40 yards, and Thomas Jones scored his long-awaited first touchdown as a Jet. ?I?m keeping the ball,? he said afterward, unable to suppress a smile. Quarterback Kellen Clemens improved his record as a starter to 2-3 and posted a career-high 91.7 passer rating. He completed 15 of 24 passes for 236 yards and a touchdown. He also threw an interception and fumbled, and Michael Lehan returned the fumble 43 yards for the touchdown that gave the Dolphins a brief 13-10 lead. Asked if the Jets did anything the Dolphins did not expect, defensive end Jason Taylor said, ?Score 40 points.? But the Jets did so much more than that. They ran trick plays, snapping directly to Washington or Smith, who scored a second-quarter touchdown, and mixing in shovel passes and play-action passes. The offense received a boost shortly before the game. Clemens knew he would be without receiver Jerricho Cotchery, who has a broken index finger on his right hand. Then Laveranues Coles trotted on the field before the game to test his injured ankle. When he returned to the locker room, he told Clemens, ?I?m going today.? When Coles tugged on his uniform, he said he saw ?a look? in his teammates? eyes. Coles missed two of the last three games, but he gutted out five receptions for 69 yards Sunday. Coles was limping visibly. Asked to describe the pain, he said, ?One word: hurt.? ?L. C. is a courageous player,? Clemens said. Clemens spreads compliments after games the way he spreads passes during them. He found eight receivers against the Dolphins, including the rarely used options Wallace Wright and Chris Davis. Afterward, he talked of those receivers, his linemen, Jones, Washington, the Jets? defense and his offensive coordinator ? forgetting only to thank the person who taped his ankles. The defense deserved the back-patting. Just as it did last season, the unit has improved significantly after the bye week, allowing fewer yards and points than before the bye, while making most quarterbacks miserable. The Jets harassed and harried the Dolphins rookie John Beck. They intercepted him three times, forced three fumbles and recovered two of them. In the third quarter, on three consecutive drives, the Jets forced a turnover and the offense turned advantageous field position into points. These Jets looked nothing like the Jets who had stumbled and bumbled through 2007, but then again, they were playing the Dolphins. The Jets refused to ask what-if afterward, because as Ellis said: ?Only we messed up our season. We did it to ourselves.? Meanwhile, Miami increased its odds of making the wrong kind of history this season. The Dolphins became the first team to start 0-12 since the 2001 Lions, who finished 2-14. Miami now stands four losses from becoming the first team with a 16-game schedule to lose them all. The Dolphins? frustration was evident. They once kicked off 7 ? yards from their end zone after back-to-back personal foul and unsportsmanlike conduct penalties. David Bowens, who plays for the Jets and played six seasons for the Dolphins, likens these meetings to ?your biggest college rivalry, like West Virginia-Pittsburgh.? The Dolphins and the Jets threw punches, yapped and talked trash. At one point, the 6-foot-6 Taylor and the 5-foot-8 Washington stood near the end zone, toe to toe, jawing, symbolic of what this rivalry used to be. Instead, the fans who filled Dolphin Stadium filed out long before the game concluded. And the underdogs talked about what it meant to beat the favored ? and still winless ? home opponent. ?That has to be the first time in football history that happened,? tight end Chris Baker said. ?We started hearing, ?This is their chance to win.? We wanted to show them, this isn?t going to be that game.? F the so called experts....:jets:
I agree that they're awful, but we did hand them their worst beat down of the season. The Jets played pretty well against an awful team. Take it for what it's worth.
People don't seem to understand that the Betting Line is about Perception, not reality.... However, I tried to point that out during the week, that we arent in anywhere near the same category as Miami... (Look at it this way, if either A: Jarvis Green doesnt roll up on pennington, or B: The Coaching staff stays with Clemens longer than just one week, till Chad is fully healthy...we are probably still trying to figure out Wild Card seedings...)
We didn't play that good (sic)? The reason for most of the Dolphin turnovers was the pressure put on by the Jets Defense - one of their best efforts of the season. Revis shut down their outside threats. We stopped their running game completely...and pressured the young QB... ...the offense was ok in the first half, and did the job in the 2nd half. The goal is to make turnovers hurt the other team, and we scored off their turnovers - that's good football.
I still don't understand how the Jets were the underdogs to a WINLESS team. How is that possible? Seriously, how?
You're right. I forgot that the Jets held down a team with a championship calibur QB and a future HoF running back. WTG defense... you really showed them! :up: :breakdance:
Home team gets 3 points. If they had played in the meadowlands, the Jets would have been favored by 4.5 points. Still stupidly low, but in reality the Jets were actually fovored.
The Jets weren't "actually" favored.... Home team gets 3 points, but that factors into the whole equation. If the oddsmakers thought the Jets should be favored in the game, they would have been favored, regardless of the field...
Some "Home Team," though.... Mad Dog said today about half the people in the stands were Jets fans.... LMFAO!!! Hahahahahaaaa
You miss my point. The number they came up with would have translated to the Jets being favored at home or on a neutral field.
The guy is classless. I'm just glad that while we were kicking his has-been ass, whenever he looked up in the stands he saw more green and white than torquiose and orange. Hahahahahahahahaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!
The thing about the point spread is that its just a barometer of public perception. The goal of a spread isn't to predict how many points a team will win by. The goal is to get an equal amount of bets on both sides so that the bookies can earn the vig (bookie fee) and the bets break even. The fact that the Jets were one point underdogs means that gamblers were just slightly more likely to choose the 'Fins to win. (America doesn't watch a lot of Jets football, so the nation's gamblers don't know that the Jets are actually a decent team). If more people bet on the Jets, the spread would be even. If even more people bet on the Jets, the spread would be in the Jets favor. That's why opening lines change dramatically over the course of the week: it's a "wisdom of crowds" thing. But who cares? Everyone who put money on the Dolphins lost. Thanks for number 3, Gang Green!
The "three points to the home team" thing is largely irrelevant. That's the base spread, sure, but so much more factoring goes into the spread after that. The home team was a 21 point dog on Monday night, no?
I just love this guy, man. Anybody wanna knock him for being a bad locker room guy? No reason to subject himself to that kind of pain in a blown season unless he has a sense of pride in the Jets; these are the guys we build around. LC for mayor of Jetstown.
