Jets Aren't the Team That Needs to Worry About Being Cocky

Colts are the ones who need to guard against cockiness

Rex Ryan landed himself another back page of the Daily News on Tuesday because he said he'd be "shocked" if the Jets lost on Sunday. Commence eye-rolling.

We've been over this more times than we care to count on these pages, but we're still waiting for the answer to the question of why it is a bad thing for the coach of a football team to expect his team to win football games. Rumors of the Jets cockiness have gone beyond the sports pages by this point. David Letterman weighed in with a moderately funny top 10 list on Monday night about the ways you know that the Jets are too cocky.

Here's the thing, though, the Jets aren't the ones who need to worry about overconfidence. They may be pushing a little bit too hard about not having anything to be embarrassed about from the first matchup with the Colts reserves, but the Colts are the ones who are convinced that there's no chance they would have lost the game if they hadn't pulled their starters.

They're also the team run by a president, Bill Polian, who crowed about how he doesn't need any apologies from anyone who thought it was unwise to stop trying to win football games that count. Surely a man of Polian's experience is aware that no one will much care about beating the Ravens if the Colts lose to the Jets, so he must view this week's game as already in the bag.

Polian's comment doesn't mean his team is going to come into the game overconfident. Given the Colts' postseason history, you'd think they'd know how often a team rolls into the playoffs with a lofty record before crashing and burning. You'd also think they know they have a lot more to lose than a Jets team that no one thought would make it anywhere close to the Super Bowl this season.

For the Jets, that's beside the point. Whether you call it confidence, cockiness, swagger or obnoxious bravado, you don't fix what isn't broken.

Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City and is a contributor to FanHouse.com and ProFootballTalk.com in addition to his duties for NBCNewYork.com.

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