Those are actually the main factors against a team that has been able to gain steady yardage and hasn't turned the ball over. Sit on your homer hat for a minute and understand the opponent.
A little insight into Jake Locker and his play so far. FYI there are some gifs in the link so if your browser struggles with gifs, just a heads up. http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/75752/are-we-witnessing-the-rise-of-jake-locker 0 turnovers so far, hopefully the Jets bring him back down to reality.
On paper this is a Jets win. The Titans running game, including Locker's scrambling, is what is floating the boat for them right now. The Jets have a nasty run defense. The Titan's passing game is average at best as the team relies on the run to maintain control. Rex takes average passing games and chews them a new one. So you have to think that the Jets are in prime position for an upset since the Titans don't have a clear path to score on. It's going to come down to Geno though. If he takes another step and has a turnover free game this could be a rout for the Jets. If he turns the ball over 2 or 3 times it could easily be a loss. It'll be interesting to see if Mornhinweg and Geno can navigate the straits here and put the Titans away.
I'm with you. I think that if they can get into the bye at 5-4 we can start talking about playoffs potentially, but that 5 game stretch (other than pittsburgh) will be tough.
Looking forward to seeing Shonn Greene and CJ get stifled and force Tenn to go to the air for our excellent secondary to repeatedly pick off Locker. *sarcasm* We'll be able to put up points and if we can stop/limit stupid penalties and our secondary tightens up, we have a shot at winning, but I think thats a big ask at the moment
I think this is a very winnable game as well as a great test to see just how competitive out team may be. We have a great defense. If we can stop the run, then there will be opportunities for Locker to make mistakes in the air. I think this is a test for us because if we can beat this team with no problem, then that adds hope that this team can be legitimate this year. However, if we let them hang around the entire game, or even lose, then it'll show more or less that this team is, in fact, a losing record team this year.
Winning or losing this particular game doesn't mean we will have a winning or losing record this year. What it will probably mean if we lose, is that our rookie QB has a few more lessons to learn. Week to week any team can beat any team.
I agree with what you are saying. You're right. I definitely feel that if we have a great game, we can say we have something good going forward in the season. But if we lose this game, it's safe to say we have a good amount of things to work on before we can be confident week in and week out.
LOL dude at this point in time I take so little consideration into what the "experts" say it's almost comical. Especially early in the season, they're almost always wrong. Since when are the Titans a juggernaut? I honestly see no reason we can't win this game. Shut down CJ2K, Locker is not going to beat us over the top, limit the turnovers on Offense and we're staring 3-1 right in the face. :metal:
What is comical is that this is more a less a pickem game and everybody picks against the Jets. That is weird you would expect more a split.
I don't know why everyone says the Titans are so good. They beat a horrible Pittsburgh team and beat a San Diego in the final 15 seconds. They are in the same class as us and no reason why we can't go in their and punch them in the mouth.
I'm really not sure they're even in our class... We're just as good as them on offense, if not better, and our defense is top 5 while theirs is overrated due to inflated stats from games against PIT and a bad chargers team.
To play devil's advocate we won the game against Tampa in the last few seconds off of a gift of a bad penalty and you could say our defensive stats are inflated by playing against the Pats in the rain where they were missing a number of their top players and their receivers couldn't catch a thing (they got open a lot though). And we played the Bills, with a rookie QB no less. It cuts both ways. I think our defense is strong and our offense is starting to come to life but they still have CJ2K. We have been very good against the run so far and have held some pretty good backs to a limited number of yards but he can still be a game breaker.