By Paul Sondhi
Thursday night’s Giants/Washington Football Team matchup kicked off the NFL’s third week, and you know what, the New York Jets actually look pretty good so far. Heading into their highly anticipated matchup on Sunday versus the Philadelphia Eagles, the Jets are poised to take advantage of a bumbling Philly team and start the season 3–0. They’ve started the year by defeating the lowly Cleveland Browns and last season’s AFC Championship Game participant Indianapolis Colts.
Contrary to previous musings by certain NYU-affiliated blogs, this has not been typical Jets season.
At this pace, Gang Green has a legitimate shot at reaching 5–0 with games against Miami and Washington after this week. That would set up a mid-season showdown at Foxboro against bitter rivals and stinky cheaters the New England Patriots.
Right now the Jets are admittedly looking a little banged up headed into the weekend, but don’t tell your neighborhood Jets fan that. Right now, all is sunny at the Meadowlands for head coach Todd Bowles’ squad.
The question is, how are the Jets managing to play so well? Are we overreacting to two strong games and ignoring the potentially fatal flaws of this team? Perhaps, but let’s do a dive on both sides of the ball to get a real sense of why this team is performing at what is probably its realistic max level.
On defense, there is no bigger game changer in the secondary than Revis Island. The return of the star cornerback to the team he spent six seasons with has made a tremendous impact on the Jets’ pass defense. New York ranks fourth in pass defense on Football Outsiders, and comes in at second overall defense. Colts’ QB Andrew Luck, easily one of the “elite” passers in the NFL, looked like a mere mortal on Monday night against the Jets, throwing just one touchdown and three interceptions.
Bowles was the defensive coordinator in Arizona for the past two years, and he commanded a Cards’ D that ranked second and seventh overall on Football Outsiders in 2013 and 2014, respectively. In his first two games with the Jets, Bowles has brought that same level of prowess to this team so far, returning the Jets defense to its glory of recent years.
The key to this strong start may also be the play of quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick, who has been filling in for a punched-in-the-jaw Geno Smith. The 10-year veteran has shown that he is more than capable of managing the offense, throwing for 4 TDs and 2 INTs against Cleveland and Indy. He’s meshed especially well with Brandon Marshall, who went off with 101 yards and a touchdown last week. If Eric Decker and Chris Ivory (who rushed for 91 yards and 2 TDs in Week 1) can stay healthy, the Jets may actually have somewhat of a scary offense! Right now, Smith returning might give the Jets a worse chance to win now, even if it might hurt Smith (and by proxy, the Jets) in the long run.
But forget the long term; Jets’ fans have got to be excited about how the team is playing now. The AFC actually looks relatively weak right outside of New England, and it could very well be the Jets who emerge as a potential contender. Considering the age of the Jets’ defense, it is not the worst idea for them to go for it now. A 10–6 record is totally possible considering the ease of their schedule moving forward; let’s see if the Jets screw it up like they usually do, or if there’s some magic in store for the rest of 2015.
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