When we looked at the Jets’ schedule at the beginning of the season, the last two weeks, road games against Detroit and Cleveland, looked like easy wins, a chance to mow over two lesser teams and rest up a bit before tough home games against Houston and Cincinnati. As it turned out, it might be the exact opposite of that. But probably not.
The Texans come into the New Meadowlands on Sunday reeling, a team that was supposed to break through this year but has now lost three in a row. Their coach is embattled, their fans are angry, and the whole organization looks demoralized. And now they have to play a Jets team coming off two tough overtime road victories and looking to calm matters down with a nice, easy yawner.
It’s probably time to stop waiting for one of those. This is the type of season in which the best teams are dominant only in theory; the Jets have the best record in football, but they keep just slipping by opponents. The Lions have won two games all year; the Jets have won seven. And yet still: overtime. Everyone keeps waiting for the Jets to blow a team away, but that’s just not really who the Jets are: Mark Sanchez has been playing better, but he’s not exactly going to light teams up with five first-quarter touchdowns and let everyone go take a nap. This is still a ball-control, big-defense team.
The Jets are winning games this season by being just a little bit better, and maybe that’s just how teams win in the NFL anymore. The Jets will argue that they haven’t put it all together just yet — they even admit they’ve only played one ideal game all season, the 38–14 win over Buffalo — but there are only seven regular season games left. We have a rather good idea of who the Jets are. Good. Best team in football, maybe. But not dominant. These days, that’s enough. That’ll do.