Playoffs!? Yes, Gang talking about playoffs
For a team being pronounced dead on Labor Day, it is amazing the Jets find themselves still in the playoff hunt a few days after Thanksgiving. But that is exactly where the 4-6 Jets are in a muddled AFC as they welcome the 7-3 Panthers to MetLife Stadium on Sunday. They enter Sunday a game out of the playoffs.
“We know what’s going on right now,” cornerback Morris Claiborne said. “We know that we’re still in this thing. You look around the league and everybody is pretty much all together. We still have a fighting chance. We just have to take care of our business on Sunday and the weeks after that.”
Realistically, the Jets’ playoff hopes are slim thanks to a very difficult schedule down the stretch. Still, no one can deny they are still in the thick of the race. If they can somehow get on a hot streak, they will make a push to break their playoff drought that stretches back to 2010.
Jets coach Todd Bowles was blunt this week when asked if the Jets have to win out to make the postseason.
“Excuse the language, but that’s probably a ‘ no s--t statement,’ ” Bowles said. “We’re trying to win every game.”
Before the bye week, the Jets played their worst game of the season in Tampa Bay and lost. They could do nothing offensively and the penalty problem that has plagued them continued. The Jets know they cannot afford to play like that again. A team like the Panthers will run them out of the building if they do.
“The margin for error is gone,” linebacker Jordan Jenkins said. “We have to be keyed in every week. The whole penalty fiasco, we can’t have it. The margin for error was slim then. It’s even less now. We really can’t afford any mistakes.”
The Panthers enter this game winners of three straight. They boast a highpowered offense led by quarterback Cam Newton and the No. 2 defense in the NFL. The Jets are coming into this one with a playoff mindset.
“I think that you are coming down the stretch — you have to play with that mindset,” quarterback Josh McCown said. “It’s that time of year and I still think that with the way this thing is shaking out, it’s going to remain pretty open as we go.”