Gang Green focus on 1st order of business
The Jets were supposed to be dead and buried by this point of the season. But like your favorite horror-movie monster, they have not gone quietly and now find themselves fighting for first place in the AFC East on Sunday at MetLife Stadium.
The only thing standing in their way is the daunting challenge of toppling the defending Super Bowl champion Patriots, led by the Jets’ greatest tormenters — Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.
Most preseason predictions had the Patriots flirting with 16-0 and the Jets flirting with 0-16. Instead, both teams are 3-2, tied with the Bills for first place. Buffalo has a bye week, so the winner of the Jets-Patriots game gets sole possession of first place in mid-October.
“The great thing about it is we have a chance to be in first place after six games,” wide receiver Jeremy Kerley said. “That’s the cool thing about it. This team hasn’t been in first place in the AFC East (by itself) in a long time. It’s about time that we start setting a good standard around here and start having that name and that title with the Jets.”
Kerley is correct. The Jets have not held sole possession of first place in the AFC East this late in the season since 2010, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. That is the last time the Jets went to the playoffs.
No one is picking the Jets as a playoff team yet, but the perception of the team has changed dramatically over their current three-game winning streak. The Jets spent the offseason ignoring people saying how bad they are. Now, they are tuning out the ones saying how much better they are.
“It hasn’t changed for us,” coach Todd Bowles said. “Praise or criticism, you have to go out there and do your job, and that’s our focus. Like I said, we’re focusing on us and we’re trying to get better each week, so we’re trying to go out there and win ball games and get to the playoffs and go to the Super Bowl like everybody else.”
The Jets know that in order to beat the Patriots and take over first place alone, they must play better than they did last week, when they struggled in Cleveland
“First place in anything sounds pretty good,” linebacker Jordan Jenkins said. “In order for that to happen, we can’t play like we have in the last two or three weeks because we’ve had a lot of mistakes, a lot of mental errors and we have failed to capitalize on some of the field position we’ve had.”