Can you ever remember a more overhyped, overrated team ever in an NFL pre-season? Me neither. Here are some reasons you need to recognize why the Jets will not make the playoffs this season.
1. The Jets were 9-7 last year. They won their ninth game in the NFL’s last regular season game when the Cincinnati Bengals benched all of their starters to rest for the playoffs. Because of this, the Jets snuck into the playoffs. Let’s look more closely at the Jets 9 wins, shall we?
The Jets started off the 2009 season with two quality wins at 8-8 Houston and at home against a recovering New England Patriot team. I’ll give you those two wins. Then, they beat the 8-8 Titans who were an atrocious 0-6 to start the year. After LOSING to the hapless Bills, the Jets beat the hopeless 5-11 Raiders. They then rolled off three straight losses before winning three straight against Carolina, Buffalo, and Tampa; whose combined record was 17-32. Wow!!!! World Beaters! Finally, after losing on their own field in December to the domed Falcons, the Jets got their remaining two wins against Indianapolis and Cincinnati. Two teams who had their starters benched for at least half of their respective games.
To recap: The Jets beat Houston. Beat the Patriots (and later lost by 17 to the same team when they were healthy), beat Tennessee who got off to a horrible start with Kerry Collins, beat the laughing stock Raiders, beat the laughing stock Bills, beat the 3-11 Buccaneers, beat an 8-8 Carolina team who was playing for the first time without their starting QB, and beat two teams who benched their starters and had nothing to play for.
Other than the two teams who benched their starters to rest for the playoffs, the combined record of the 7 teams the Jets beat were 48-64. – impressive, indeed. I won’t even mention the fact that of their 7 losses….only two of them came against a team with a winning record. For real. But let the memory of the Jets two big playoff wins against an overrated Bengal team and an underachieving Charger team cloud how the Jets actually performed for the 2009 season. I’ll look at their actual body of work, thank you.