My feelings about the New York Jets defense have been widely publicized. After being photographed together in San Tropez, I decided to completely disclose the relationship on the BuDa-BLoG. I love them. I just love the Jets defense this year.
I've gone as far as saying they're the best defense in the league (earlier this season - see BuDa Pick'Em Week 3) and after their stumbles have believed. I believe the Jets will be back to 3-0 form soon enough!
Unfortunately those thoughts are in the past. Kris Jenkins, monstrous Nose Tackle for the Jets defense is reported to be out for the season with a torn ACL. It can be said about most starting defensive lineman in the league that the defensive line, and in turn, the performance of the entire defense, is going to be incredibly negatively affected by the loss of that one player. No matter what player you are talking about, its Mission: Impossible to replace a 6-foot-4-inch 360 pound defensive lineman who can basically just lean on the offensive line and do his job. (Please read ESPN injury analyst Stephania Bell's blog for more information, possibly, on this injury. She's just the best.)
With the Jets putting up three straight losses, the "Dirty" Mark Sanchez honeymoon is over. The after-party buzz is wearing off, and you are starting to become aware that the chick you are waking up next to, instead of being a slight shade over 100 lbs., is in fact a slight shade under 200 lbs. Whoops! Let's be real here - Mark Sanchez is a rookie quarterback, and you can argue he had a bit of beginners luck the first few weeks. The New York media isn't the problem, but it certainly doesn't help the guy get over mistakes - he looked like he was about to shit his pants and cry at the post-game press conference.
Is this team done? Absolutely not. Is this team one of the possibly elite teams in league that they were being touted as prior to Week 4? Absolutely not.
As you know, I live and die loving the Blue, but the Jets are by far and away my second favorite NFL Football team. I got pissed in Week 3 when they played at the same time. I look forward to my 1:00PM/ET through 7:30PM/ET block of New York Football each Sunday.
The Jets defense is still better than say, Oakland, or Kansas City, but one of the big draws on the defense is Kris Jenkins. This injury is ha-uge. One defensive player excelling at a particular area has a dramatic effect - see Darelle Revis in Week 2. Darelle was the color "White" and Randy Moss was the grain "Rice". Opposing offenses will no longer have reservations about pounding the rock up the middle for fear of the 6'4", 360 lbs. big man. It's big. That said, they're a professional team - they'll manage.
The Jets offense remains the question mark. Emphasis on the mark. Mark Sanchez, that is. (Totally just came to me as I was writing that) Can Mark Sanchez get out of his own head and play consistently? He is making a lot of mistakes, all rookie mistakes. His play is obviously in question, but it's worrisome in the sense that the rest of the offense has been performing relatively well, and they were still tied to the Bills in the 4th Quarter. Good for the Bills for playing hard and coming out with the victory - at the same time, the Jets need to get things together because the game shouldn't have been close. The Browns weren't able to put up more than 6 points against them AND Derek Anderson only completed 2 passes - also, the Browns won. Mark Sanchez needs to not try for the big play/deep ball when he is under duress.
He needs to play like a game-manager, use Leon Washington as a check down option, use his TE's, and his Wide Receiver's need to break pattern and come back to him when he is in trouble. He doesn't have the experience and Quarterback'ing "IQ" to not force ball to a deep post while being forced out of the pocket - eventually he'll learn that the Middle Linebacker is waiting just out of view for an easy pick, but not yet.
Looking at the Jets schedule for the rest of the season, their toughest opponents are New England, Miami, Atlanta, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati. Their easiest opponents being next week with Oakland, the Bills again, and Tampa Bay. It is entirely possible for the Jets to win 3 (and maybe even 4) out of their 5 toughest games, and they should win all of their easy ones. That should put the Jets at 9 wins, and then they have two other games against Jacksonville, and Carolina - both of which are entirely winnable. I think that certain sense of conservative optimism leads me to believe that the Jets should end up at 9-7 at the worst, and I would even venture to say 12-4 at best. More than likely they'll have an outside shot towards the end of the season to finish 10-6, so who the fuck knows.
Long story short, I'm not giving up on watching these dudes. No way. I only do Big Blue chants in my blog, but if I did do others I would be chanting "J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, JETS!" But I don't...
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