(Neil Miller/Sportsday Wire)
Sure the Jets should have won this game. The Tennessee Titans were a putrid 3-9 coming into today’s match.
But, man, the Jets sure looked good out there with an impressive 30-8 win.
Only a wildcat option touchdown reception from Marcus Mariotta in the third gave the Titans anything. Otherwise, it was all Jets out there, from the opening J-E-T-S chant.
“We still have some things to clean up,” said head coach Todd Bowles. “We just have to continue to play and get better. These guys are getting to know each other. If we’re going to go anywhere, it’s not the defense that’s going to take us. It’s the whole team. We have had two good weeks in a row, probably three, but we’re playing more complete football as the weeks go on. That’s what you look for.”
At 8-5 with three to play, the Jets still need to win every game going forward. They are in “Jerryworld” next week to play the Cowboys and then have two tough divisional matchups with the Patriots and Bills to end the season.
So let’s not print the playoff tickets just yet. But if the Jets take care of business in Dallas and then split against their old friends Bill and Rex, the playoffs should be in the cards.
All of this would never have even been thought of a month ago when Rex Ryan exacted his revenge on Gang Green on a Thursday night.
The Jets looked out of it. A not ready for prime time team that couldn’t execute the proper plays for a victory. Something happened over the past month, though. This team jelled into a good cohesive unity that has been playing well on both sides of the ball.
The Jets need to thank their veterans for the leadership during this run. On defense Mohammad Wilkenson has been a monster, including two sacks today. They held together with the loss of Derrelle Revis and he came back fully healthy today after a concussion.
“I think when you have a great team, this is the time you usually click, in November, December and going into the postseason,” Revis said. “Today was an example of that, playing a complete game. You could see it out on the field. We were focused, we were locked in and we’ve got to continue to stay locked in throughout the rest of the season.”
And on the offense, all the credit in the world should go to Ryan Fitzpatrick. With a 108.8 QB rating today, this was the sixth game for him with a rating over 100 and ninth over 93.3. He had been consistent and worked with his receivers, particularly Brandon Marshall to become a more complete quarterback.
“I mean, there’s a lot that goes into that, some of it’s health, some of it’s chemistry. I think, especially offensively, we’ve got some good chemistry going right no,” Fitzpatrick said. “I think our health is pretty good and so we’ve set ourselves up offensively just to continue to get better and we left a lot of plays out there today, but it’s going to be exciting to see what happens the next few weeks with our group.”
All of this means the Jets are firing on all cylinders. When asked about possible trap games in the schedule, Bowles said his team wasn’t the Golden State Warriors and they are not enough to worry about being trapped.
It’s that kind of attitude that will keep the Jets on an even keel as they look to play in January. And if they get there, you never know what happens.
Today, though, they looked really good against a bad team. That’s certainly a good place to start.
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