I'm sure many of you have realized this too but I i figured it was worth mentioning.... If we go by current win-loss record, we have one above-.500 opponent on our entire schedule (Pats twice): Week 1: Browns (3-11) Week 2: Colts (6-8) Week 3: Eagles (6-8) Week 4: Dolphins (5-9) Week 6: Redskins (7-7) Week 7: Patriots (12-2)* Week 8: Raiders (6-8) Week 9: Jaguars (5-9) Week 10: Bills (6-8) Week 11: Texans (7-7) Week 12: Dolphins (5-9) Week 13: Giants (6-8) Week 14: Titans (3-11) Week 15: Cowboys (4-10) Week 16: Patriots (12-2)* Week 17: Bills (6-8) The same is true if we go by record at the time of facing the opponent: Week 1: Browns (0-0) Week 2: Colts (0-1) Week 3: Eagles (0-2 Week 4: Dolphins (1-2) Week 6: Redskins (2-3) Week 7: Patriots (5-0)* Week 8: Raiders (3-3) Week 9: Jaguars (2-5) Week 10: Bills (4-4) Week 11: Texans (4-5) Week 12: Dolphins (4-6) Week 13: Giants (5-6) Week 14: Titans (3-9) Week 15: Cowboys (4-9) Week 16: Patriots (12-2)* Week 17: Bills (will be 7-8 or 6-9) If we go by final end-of-season record, we will have faced a MAXIMUM of three above-.500 opponents...and that's assuming both WAS and HOU win out. It's possible we will have played only one or two winning teams all year.
You can only play who they put in front of you. But yes, we got to play the AFC South and NFC East - 2 divisions that would rank as historically bad And then add our last place finish got us the Browns and Raiders, there you go. Next year - we get NFC West and AFC Central, plus a second place schedule (Chiefs or Denver. and Houston or Indy) which will be a whole lot tougher
Eh, can't really do anything about the 2015 schedule. But make sure to temper expecetations next year when we have a significantly harder schedule, that's all.
Fourth place only dictates 2 games - one of which is one of our losses (Oak) The rest of the schedule is predetermined.
New England has only beaten 1 team with a winning record too. and that was week 1 against Pittsburgh when everyone was 0-0 edit- besides us, lol
Exactly. Which is why to say the schedule next year is going to be "harder" due to second place finish without regard to what those predetermined teams are going to look like next year is erroneous as well. The Panthers are playing a 1st place schedule, yet the combined defenses they've face are ranked something like 29th. The schedule is predetermined every year, and it is what it is (cliche, I know).
The metric of an over .500 team is a bit skewed this year, and that should be taken into account. If you take out the teams currently 7-7, 3 in number (and two of which are leading their divisions, with a playoff berth if the season ended now), that leaves 29 other teams. Take the Jets out to get to 28, and how many are over .500? 10, 5 in each conference. And in the Pats the Jets play one of those teams twice. At the other end of the metric it is really only two teams the Jets have played who were bad, Cleveland and Tenn. Sure the fish are 5-9, but that's partly due to the first sweep of them in a long time. It's a year when there just are not all that many over .500 teams. Add in that the Jets have played two of the 3 teams at 7-7, and the schedule does not look all that skewed.
It's why I've been saying all along that 10 wins shouldnt be surprising to anyone. And now it could be 11. I know none of us are used to winning teams but the improvement in coaching and personnel plus the easy schedule makes the 8-8 or 9-7 that most "optimistic " fans predicted, really shortsighted
All the more reason our record could/should have been better and why complaining about the tie breakers is stupid. We didn't win some games we should have costing us ground. Eagles, Texans and the freaking bills games. All eminently winnable and we dropped the ball. The whole reason we are in the this playoff conundrum because we lost these easily winnable games. No one to blame but ourselves.
True, but it's what the schedule used to look like for a 4-12 team prior to their switching to the rotating divisional conference play, and what many of us think should still be the case. In some years after a bad season, teams face very tough seasons. It's happened to the Jets more than once.
There are 21 teams with a losing or .500 record this year. The entire NFL is mediocre to bad, aside from a few teams. Not our fault that's how our schedule fell. Some of the teams we played were supposed to be a lot better than they turned out to be. Most team's schedules are going to appear easy this year...
This is a great post and so overlooked when people say this. There are very few teams who have played a bunch of over .500 teams just because there are so few. I mean the entire AFCE played 2 divisions which before yesterday had ZERO teams AT .500, let alone over. That is going to skew things big time.
At the start of the season you'd of thought that the; Eagles - pre-season form, top RB from last year, Chip Kelly. Colts - Andrew Luck Giants - ELI, OBJ and if games were 50 minutes long they'd be 11-3) Cowboys - Romo > Weeden or whoever. Would end up over .500. Add in the Pats doing what they do plus a Bills team that looks playoff worthy on paper......it didn't look like it was going to be a soft schedule especially when many thought that a 2-2 start or worse would prolly of resulted in Geno coming back after the bye.
That may be the case but I would still argue that we are a very good football team. Our D is above average and the trio of Fitz-Marshall-Decker has been unstoppable this season. Very few NFL teams can boast our balance. Unfortunately, we did not get to test ourselves frequently against elite competition, and even more unfortunately, we may get the short end of the stick on a three-way 11-5 tiebreaker.
