Yep, the big upset was him being healthy for all 16 games. That's why the Jets have a chance at 10 wins and the playoffs.
i havent seen too many people going after the weak sched route as to why we have a solid record. especially when you look at a few teams that are better (in a few cases much better) than they were projected to be.
"experts" saw our schedule and still picked us to go 4-12, whatever, they won't take away this great season from us
i know i may be a bit biased, but i dont think we sucked last year. we were obliterated by injuries last year. thats what lead directly to our 4-12 record. i mean, when you lose your starting qb, and you #2 in the same game, things aint exactly going your way. i think that point was lost on more than a few ppl going into this season. sure we had some major moves (like 2 rookies in the 2 most important O-line positions) and 1 HUGE ? in how pennington would play, let alone if he would hold up over the course of the season. i know that i didnt think chad would be starting his 16th consecutive game this year. the 2 rooks really came into their own (mangold looks to be like a steal with the way he has stepped in and just become a younger version of mawae) i know hes got a ways to go before he hits the level that mawae was playing at when he got here, but hes made huge strides, and i dont think there are many here who dont think mangold isnt bound to become a pro bowl center. there was a lot of unknowns comming into this year, so maybe the surprise is that somany things fell into place. but knowing the talent level of the core players on this team from last year our record isnt a shock.
The best line all season was from Gil Brandt when he said the Jets were stealing wins from teams that had marked them down as an easy win on the schedule. That was about week 6. I'd love to know what he thinks right now, because there's no such thing as a weak team that goes 10-6.
I don't see how you can say the east is the weakest in the AFC. Right now the east is 21-23 north is 22-22 south is 23-21 west is 23-23 There are no push overs in the east. The north all got to play Cleveland twice. The South got Houston twice. The west got Oakland twice. Last place in the east is Miami who I would say is a better team than all those teams. Yes I know Cleveland beat us but over all I would have to say the East is definately not the weakest.
Yeah, the AFC East has the worst record at the moment, albeit not by much. As an example of the schedule weakness that the AFC East faced this year: The Jets are the only likely playoff team in football to play 5 teams that will finish last in their divisions this year and having 6 games against those teams (Miami x 2, Cleveland, Houston, Oakland and Detroit.) They're the only likely playoff team that had both the terrible teams in the NFL (Oakland and Detroit) on their schedule.
So take those out of the equation and you have records of 9-11, 10-10, 11-9,11-11. With todays games left to play it is looking like it will be pretty level.
