As far as the division is concerned, the odds on the Bills / Jets are about even aren't they???...If not, there certainly isn't much distance between them..... The Bills offense stinks, but the defense should be good enough to keep them in most games. The Jets are an uncertainty on both sides of the ball in my opinion. You lost Abraham / Law / Mawea / Chrebet / Teague{injury}, and now Martin appears to be struggling to make a return. Not to mention WR J. McCareins has been in the dog house all training camp long..... The Jets are clearly re-building in more areas than the Bills. I think the Jets are headed in a much better "long term direction", and I think getting Mangini was a great decision, but looking at the 2006 season in particular, the Bills may end up winning more games just because they're not making as many changes this year. I could be wrong, but not much should seperate the two teams in my opinion.... I think anyone who follows football, has a good idea of what to expect from the Jets. They have a very young, and inexperienced coaching staff / rookies starting at key positions on the OL{Mangold - D'Brick} / no true #1 RB on the roster{Houston - Barlow} / and a possible QB controversy looming in the distance{Clemens moving up}. That's not everything either, there's more, but why go on??.... As a result, I expect the Jets to struggle like any other NFL team that eventually goes through the re-building process. Somewhere around 5 wins is my guess. Then in 2007, expect more....and so on.....
Your post is good and you make a lot of valid points about the Jets. However, I'm looking at this year in comparison to last season, and there are three things that stand out to me... -Better head coach -Better roster (healthy too!) -Easier schedule While the Jets will most certainly struggle and go through growing pains, I can't see them doing worse than last year. I think in order for that to happen the Jets would either have to start taking major start injuries again or the talent on the team really IS that bad. A lot of people here do feel the talent is that bad at this point but I don't. Abraham/Law are great players but even without them going into last year people still would've considered the Jets a good team before they fell apart. My point is that with the three major points I made above, I can't imagine them improving by only two games. I think a hard 8-8 is very realistic, with a lot of momentum going into next season.
Being that Miami is a front running town when it comes to sports, I wouldn't count on tickets for that game or any game from a NE team being available. In fact, the only guaranteed sellouts for this sad organization is when the Jets, Pats or any other draw is in town. If it wasn't for local channels that carry their games having to buy the remaining tickets AFTER the deadline has already been extended most Dolphin games would be blacked out. Remember this fact, they had a PLAYOFF game blacked out a few years ago against the Colts. That should tell you everything about their 'fanbase'...
That sounds like a nice reason to head to Florida this X mas..... My prediction is the Jets will prevent somebody from making the playoffs this year by beating them in December, I really hope it's Miami
That's not entirely true. We sell out most of our home games every year. Even when it's not "sold out", we pack in over 70,000 fans every Sunday at home regardless. That's more than many NFL stadiums hold..... There are usually only a couple of home games a year where we actually struggle to sell out before the deadline, and a lot of it depends on who we are playing against. When teams that have a losing record come to town, sometimes instead of selling 76,000 tickets, we only sell 73,000. Then if the remaining tickets aren't bought up prior to the deadline, someone will buy them up so the game can be broadcast locally. Big deal... Actually, that game was sold out. It wasn't sold out in time to lift the blackout deadline, but it was sold out at kickoff. And it wasn't the Colts, it was the Baltimore Ravens....
