The Jets beat the Bills in Toronto on Thursday night. For the second week in a row we squeaked out a win against one of the leagues poorest teams. They have an interim head coach, a back up QB from Harvard, and their "home field" for this weeks game is about 100 miles from their real home. With the chips stacked in our favor we still made it look hard.
The story of the game revolved around two missed TD opportunities and a minor injury to #6's knee. Sanchez grossly overthrew Cotchery on a simple post route and on the following drive he delivered a perfect strike to Edwards who was wide open thanks to a blown coverage. Edwards dropped the pass, and a 'go-ahead' 84 yard TD never happened.
We had a bunch of close calls on offense, and our best overall player, Darrelle Revis, also had some missed INT's on defense. #24 played an excellent game by pretty much making T.O. a non-factor for the second time this season. That being said, he dropped at least 3 easy picks, and Lito Sheppard also let an easy one slip away which would have been a sure TD. We could have easily put up 40 plus points on the Bills, but pro football is all about inches and fractions of seconds.
Miami beat the Pats on Sunday and as a result the Jets are still a contender in the AFC East. Let me be 100% clear, we have NO CHANCE of making it to the playoffs. It's not because we have a rookie QB... it's not because we have a rookie head coach.... it's because we have lost to too many AFC teams. Our division record and conference record are horrible. We would need to somehow end up with the best record in our division. Miami and New England simply have easier schedules down the stretch. We still have the Colts and Bengals in our future, and they are currently the two top seeds in the AFC. Sorry Jets fans, but it isn't happening this year.
On the bright side, we are still technically alive after 12 games and thats very important. This is our first year with a new regime, if we end up at .500 and the players still have something to play for up until the end... that would make this season a success in my eyes. Of coarse, we still have 4 games to play. If we drop the next 4 and Mark puts up another 10 INT's to top of 2009... well, I guess it's safe to say 09' can still have a crash landing.
Looking to next year I see our defensive line as our #1 priority. I would list our area's on need as follows: #1 RE... #2 RT... #3 DT... #4 RB... #5 TE... #6 ROLB. We have really neglected our defensive line in the draft for quite a while. There is one player who is currently on the roster that I am concerned about moving forward. I see him as the key to our offense and he is our most talented overall player next to Revis.
His wears #17 and he is currently one big question mark. Edwards is a rare talent, and he can change a game in one play. The main knock on him from day one has been his dedication to his craft. He is currently in an ideal situation. 2010 will define Edwards career. He will either use this offseason as a chance to finally focus himself on becoming an elite WR once and for all... or... he will half-ass his way through the OTA's and training camp and his career will start to fade into irrelevance for good. Someone needs to get in this players face and make him realize he is at the crossroads of his football life.
I would love to see us evolve into a spread offense with Edwards and Clowney out wide, Cotchery in the slot and Keller at TE. A single back formation with our current O-line up front would be pretty scary. We still need a big TE to compliment Keller and another young RB, but the offense is pretty well stacked.
Sanchez needs to finish well, and the powers that be need to do a complete evaluation of our current roster over the next 4 weeks. Players like Rhodes need to be purged from this squad and a few more hungry, young pieces to the puzzle have to be added.
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