Surprising Jets poised for Patriots

Surprise, surprise. The New York Jets are playing for first.

No, not the No. 1 draft pick — as so many predicted. But for the top spot in the AFC East, with a matchup against the rival New England Patriots on tap for Sunday at MetLife Stadium.

Both teams are 3-2, with the Patriots’ struggles nearly as stunning as the Jets’ early-season success. But Todd Bowles knows better than to take Bill Belichick’s bunch lightly.

“Well, they’re scary because they’re still winning,” the Jets coach said during a conference call earlier in the week. “They are still the same Patriots. You have to knock them off the ladder. They are kings of the division right now. They won the Super Bowl.

“We have to come out and work on us and play hard and go into

the game and try and compete and win.”

The Jets have done that the past three weeks, rolling to a dominant victory against Miami and then pulling off close wins against Jacksonville and Cleveland.

Still, New York recognizes it has quite a few flaws, with penalties a major issue.

“It’s good to get a win on the road, but obviously we have to correct a lot of things on both sides of the ball,” Bowles said. “And we have to get the penalties down, which keeps hampering us every week,

which has to change.”

The Jets have been penalized 19 times in their last two games, including nine in the 17-14 win at Cleveland.

“Some of them are tickytacky, some of them are legit and some of them you can question,” Bowles said. “But either way, we have to get them down.”

The defense has also struggled to get to the quarterback, with New York’s seven sacks ranking second to last in the NFL through five games. Only Tampa Bay, with four, has less. The Jets also gave up 140 yards against the Browns, a week after allowing 175 to the Jaguars.

“We’re building that unity and playing for each other,” defensive lineman

Leonard Williams said. “But at the same time, we feel that we didn’t play up to our standards that we’ve seen on film — speaking for my position and our defense, specifically.”

New York’s offense had a rough day generating much of anything against the Browns until late, going 4 of 12 on third downs and gaining 212 yards compared to Cleveland’s 419.

“We started slow,” quarterback Josh McCown said. “They mixed the looks, they did a good job of doing some different things and we had some penalties early and kind of got behind the sticks the second drive out there and that really killed that one. So we have to start faster.”