The Telltale Game?
Is this the Jets-Bills game the team the Jets need at the time they need it?
It should be, according to Accu-Score there’s really no way that the Jes shouldn’t win this game handily. According to the prediction model, the Jets have a 77% chance of winning.
For the past few years, when the Jets play their first game against the Bills during the first month and a half of football, it seems to be a microcosm for the season is going to go the rest of the way for the Jets …
2004 — Week 5 – Jets win 16-14 in a squeaker over the Bills to go 5-0. Pennington threw for over 300 yards, but it was John Abraham’s three sack game (helped out by the rest of the F.E.A.R. – some D-Line) that everyone was talking about.
Jets go 10-6 on the season
2005 — Week 6 – Jets lost 17-27at the Bills, with Vinny at the helm. Coming off their surprise win against the Bucs, Curtis Martin had one of his last great games for the Jets going 18-148 and a TD. Other than that, Vinny was sacked five times and threw two picks while the Jets locked into their soul-killing slide, not to win again until Week 14 against the Raiders.
Jets go 4-12 on the season
2006 — Week 3 – Jets win 28-20 at the Bills in a game that wasn’t that close. JP Losman was sacked three times (twice by Rhodes, remember those days?) and Victor Hobson had a fumble recovery for a TD.
Jets go 10-6 on the season.
2007 — Week 4 – Jets lose 17-14 at the Bills. A hobbling Chad Pennington goes 32-39 for 291 yards with 1 TD and 2 INT in a game which the Jets could never get the upper hand on the Bills.
Jets go 4-12 on the season
The Bills have a lot of playmakers on offense: jackson, lynch, owens, parrish, evans. However, their biggest liability is their offensive line. If the Jets can finally get to the QB, hopefully without having to send 8 players on the blitz.
this game is not going to be as easy as everyone thinks. the jets SHOULD win, but we’ve been down this road before. they need to get down to business and play up to their level, and not down to the bills. i know this is a different team than last year, and ryan hates the same old jets phrase. if they lose, he’ll be hearing it a lot.
Bassett,
There is no model available that incorporates the Jet curse into it’s figures.
Until we overcome the curse, of when Joe Wille sold our souls to the devil to win the Superbowl, anything can happen and usually does. The Red Sox were able to overcome their curse. I see no reason why we can’t do it. To sum things up — Don’t Make Any Bets.
This is for sure a make or break game. Can you imagine if the Jets lose this game? It could potentially ruin the season. I don’t see that happening, a lot like I didn’t see us losing to Miami, we should win this game decisively, we are a much stronger team on both sides of the ball. Buffalo is in disarray, their OL is inexperienced and not very talented. Their D is a bit better, but not much. This should not even be a game.
Interesting.
Well, based on above a gambler should certainly take the points.
jets need this game, bottom line.
i believe the road game vs the bills is in toronto. major advantage to the jets. to be a playoff team, you have to beat bad teams. sweeping the bills and splitting vs the pats and dolphins would have the division record at 4-2. i will take that
Harvlis, I was convinced the curse was broken when the left Hofstra, but then last year happened.
Didn’t they leave Hofstra this year?
Bills may actually be more cursed than the Jets. The only bright spot during last year’s collapse was the gift from Losman to Ellis at the end of last year’s Bills game.
Who plays at WR for Gang Green and whether the run good routes (or blow routes leading to pick 6s) may well determine this game even if the team is ready to go.
Also the return of Whitner to the Jills does not help.
Big game. If we are any good, it will be a convincing win. Otherwise, as Bassett suggests, once again our early game against the Jills is likely to foreshadow the rest of our SOJ season.
harlan
Harvlis, if you can break a curse at any given time, it is not a curse.
Nobody thinks there’s a chance the defense will improve over the second half?
I think that even if they lose this game, the jets will improve on both sides of the ball over the course of the season and next year. If they happen to lose for whatever reason (maybe sanchez turns it over a lot, maybe Jenkins has issues with his back and the defense struggles, whatever) do you seriously think the jets will give up on the season at 3-3?
We have played 5 games so far and the Defense played very well in 4 of those games. So 1 bad game has caused some of you to lose hope in our defense? I expect the Jets D to continue to get better as the season goes on and I think they will look much closer to the way they did against Houston week 1 then the way they looked last week against Miami.
Have some faith people
Bent,
I don’t think the players will give up at 3-3, but a loss this weekend at home to this godawful Bills team would be unforgiveable.
Greg,
I didn’t know this. As long as you are well versed in curse law — will you please let the Jets know what they have to do, before they send more of us to the hospital with heart attacks.
Bent,
Good points. The defense, in the Miami game, might have have suffered a little from the addition of Pace. He seemed to be rusty and it might have caused some problems. I am sure that they will bounce back soon. We all knew that, having a rookie coach and a rookie QB, there would be some stumbling blocks, this season. Coming after a 3-0 start, it is hard to stomach. The longer this team plays together, the better they will get. The key to our season is getting hot towards the end of the year. If Sanchez gets comfortable throwing to Edwards (and hopefully Clowney) and the defense can stay healthy — we could do some damage in the playoffs. Too much talent on this team, to give up at this point.
True – and you could say the same thing about the raiders game.
But then you could last year too and they lost to the raiders anyway, yet were still thought of as a superbowl contender just months later, when that was just as unforgiveable.
We’re going to need a positive crowd this week, not one that starts booing just because they have to punt in the third quarter, so the negativity is a concern.
A good positive crowd is tough considering the weather we’re expecting. We’ll need extra alcohol to ward off the effects of the rain, and the extra alcohol often leads to booing and negativity. Is anyone tailgating this week? My usual crew has decided to take the train, and not planning to arrive until shortly before game time.
The things people are saying are similar to what was said last year before the cincy, kc and ram games. Two were sloppy wins, one was an annihilation. None shaped the rest of the season.
They should get to 5-2 and will be in good shape if they do, but anything less would be real bad.
This response is what I was talking about when I said Rex might regret the expectations he set.
regarding our running game: i see why it was tough to get leon 10+ touches… splitting carries with thomas is good and all, because i’m with the rest of the planet in believing leon is the most explosive threat we’ve got, but TJ is a 20+ carry back.
he gets in his groove when he keeps pounding in there, we give him 25 carries, we’re gonna get 130 yards. then when leon gets his 4-5 carries, one of ‘em springs for a 40 (or 70) yard TD.
seeing a box score with TJ carrying the ball 13-16 times is just not going to get it done, unless we love seeing 63 yard games. he is more than capable and his sub-par YPC average is because he’s not getting in that groove where he gets to bust long one’s late to seal the deal (see Houston).
I know it’s tough to take the ball out of Leon’s hands (I just picked up a Washington jersey), but we need to feed TJ and then enjoy the long runs for Leon that will open up.
in my opinion.
Im very concerned about the negativity. Its like we forgot what we actually have (an over-performing rookie QB who had 16 starts in college and a rookie head coach that forgot to use his timeouts… oh well, get over it). The team is still getting used to playing with each other. We need to be good in 10 weeks, not the first 5. The fact that we showed incredible promise is something to be excited about. Im with Bent on this one… they better not start booing at the game… it would be a big mistake to give up because of one loss, AT Miami, ON Monday night, ON Hispanic Heratige night with all their owners there, When the Dolphins CLEARLY needed that win more than the Jets. We got outplayed once… lets wait till it happens again before we freak out.
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PickSix…
I see your point… but we can’t wait for TJ to get in his groove anymore… Im sorry… not when Leon gets 5 yards per carry…. EVERY TIIME… from start to finish. We need to possess the ball more, we need to control the game, we need to keep opposing offenses off the field to make our defense more effective. We cannot wait for TJ anymore… he is slowing the entire team down. Shonn Greene time if you ask me.
the jets are a different team they lost cause of 1 plays 53 yard bomd they didnt expect and good defenses always get beat once an awhile remember the 85 bears loosing to miami guys.break the old attitude we will win the afc this year and beat viks in super bowl what you should be excited about is sanchez to edwards clowney/cochery/super team
true jet fan know that miami and jets always play good games in 2000 the jets came back to beat the dolfins with 30 points in 4 qauter 86 obrien to walker in overtime to beat marino dolphins 51/45 almost 950 yards in total offense both teams
The Jets should beat the Bills this week (and the Raiders next week), but we’ve always played down to the competition. We battled the unbeaten Saints and would’ve won if not for 2 giveaway TD’s via rookie QB mistakes. Then Miami our D fades in the 4th Quarter to allow 21 pts. I thought the team vets said earlier this year that it had learned from last years fade from 8-3 to missing the playoffs?
Bottom line is we’d better finally start beating lesser teams like the Giants, Steelers, Pats and other perennial playoff teams do.
On a non sequitur: Like the idea of Woodhead in the slot ala Welker. Let’s try it vs the Bills.
NJet -
I don’t consider it waiting for TJ, as much as being patient with him and the running game. run on 1st down, run on 2nd down, choose on 3rd down, repeat.
I am not down on the squad or panicking by any stretch, but i ABSOLUTELY think shotty is only outsmarting himself with all the stupid shifts and so many single back and no-back formations. i understand the purpose is to discover coverages and somehow create mismatches, but i haven’t seen anything better with that approach then just lining up with a simple motion. unless there’s something wrong with t-rich that i haven’t seen, line up and blast, counter, dive. mix leon in at times, but TJ carries the load.
I like every single thing i’ve seen from Shonn Greene except the fact that he seems to be made of glass. injured during camp, injured during scrimmages, injured after 3 carries in the reg season. let him sit and learn behind TJ and Leon like Leon sat and learned behind Curtis Martin.
but hey, if Leon is consistently getting 5 ypc, every time, then give him the 20 carries, i’m fine with that too. but 2 backs combining for 26 carries and 100 yards isn’t what we should be doing. shift the distribution and i think those same carries get us 150 plus 7’s on the board.
The offense is doing well, i think that minor tweak ramps it up more.
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Lets not give the Bills anything on this…they are abysmal. They had all pre-season to prepare against the Patriots and *still* choked it up in the end.
This game will be a mauling. Even if the offense takes 3 full quarters to warm up, the D will take out all that pent up frustration of the past two weeks out on an incredibly weak Bills O-Line. AND, at home? It won’t even be funny!