Gang Green Has Great Shot At Playoffs

Well, we learned two crucial truths in the Jets’ 2016 preseason campaign: 1. If Ryan Fitzpatrick goes down, the Jets almost certainly will, too; and 2. Preseason football makes for astonishingly dull viewing.

Actually, we’ve already known about the second one for eons—would it really kill the NFL to cut the number of exhibition games to two, or to just replace the whole thing with an American Gladiator-type competition facing teams off against one another?

And the first one is painfully obvious to anyone who watched the Jets last season. Yes, Gang Green now has a new QB on the roster in Christian Hackenberg. (By the way, the decision to keep four quarterbacks is eerily reminiscent of when John Madden placed nine nose tackles on one of his All-Madden squads from two-plus decades ago). But the rookie from Penn State is so unprepared to play at this level that Jets management was supposedly looking to redshirt him. Sorry guys, can’t do that in the pros.

Still, things look pretty good for the Jets heading into the 2016 regular season. Most of their key players on both sides of the ball are healthy. They’re also fresh off cutting nearly every player ex-GM John Idzik amassed in the two drafts he oversaw for the franchise, and that can only be a positive.

I think the season will start off rough for them, though, mostly because of who they’re playing—and where they’re playing them. I’ve got the team at 1-4 after the first five weeks, with an opening W versus the Bengals followed by losses in Buffalo and Kansas City, then another L at home to Seattle before yet one more against the Steelers in Pittsburgh.

I’m not sure what the odds of a 1-4 team making the playoffs are, but I do know Trump has a much better shot at making it into the White House without having to take the tour. That said, I think they’ll make a very good run at it. I like them away versus a solid Cardinals team in week 6, and they’ve got a great shot at winning the next four after that (home vs. the Ravens, then away at Cleveland and Miami, then back home versus the Rams) to reach 6-4 with the Pats coming to town in late November.

They face New England twice in their last six games, and while stranger things have happened (this is the Jets after all), I don’t see them winning either. But I also don’t think they’ll lose to anyone but Tom Brady & co. in their last six contests (they also play the Colts, Dolphins and Bills at home—no way Rex sweeps them again—and 49ers on the road).

So, for those of you who are still with me, that means a second consecutive 10-6 season for Todd Bowles’s crew.

In 2015, it wasn’t good enough to make the playoffs. In 2016, I think it will be… As long as none of their other 3 QBs have to play much.

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