There were a lot of pundits out there that kept telling us that the Jets lacked talent everywhere. We were rebuilding and we had no running game and our defensive line sucked. I think this game showed something. Conditioning is what really wins games. A lot of games come down to a margin of 7 points or less (something like 70%?). One possession near the end of the game usually decides the whole game. The Patriots the last few years have been very good at pulling those games in their favor. Why? Not necessarily because they have such good players. It's because they're well-coached. They have the conditioning to finish off games. We did that this past week. Our beloved Jets did something that most pundits didn't predict. We lasted and fought through adversity and won near the end of the game where we were just a little bit better. We had the stamina to get through it all. It's what I think will be a Mangini staple. The thing about this league is that the difference between winning and losing is razor thin. The Patriots/Steelers/etc aren't THAT much more talented than even the lowest team. The thing that wins games is execution and it's strongly correlated to the conditioning of the players. Mark my words. It will be a close game this Sunday. We're not getting blown out 24-6. This team will hang around till the fourth quarter and play the Patriots tough. And it's not because we have so much talent on this team. It's because we have stamina. The Patriots might go up early 10-0, but it'll be 17-10 or something like that in the fourth. I wouldn't be surprised if we won. That said, there were a few things that bothered me. We really should have won this game 30-7. There were the 7 points Nugent didn't get. And the QB sack/fumble/touchdown sequence wouldn't have happened if we're up 16 instead of 8. We're most likely running the ball and draining the clock. There were also too many drive-killing penalties involved. But the good news is that these are all pretty fixable problems. The defense will be pretty good. We're going to get lots of turnovers and play smashmouth. The offense also looked good. We got a lot of players involved. Our running game could use a lot of improvement, but we made up for it with our short passing game. In other words, not too different from the Patriots. At least after this game, I think we finish somewhere around 7-9 to 10-6. Laugh at me if you want, but in this league, conditioning and stamina counts for a lot.
This is a very smart and well thought out post... conditioning definitely is a huge and underrated factor in determining who wins football games... Herm had the attitude that the players came into camp as professionally conditioned athlete and didn't focus on that so much... I think Mangini focuses on that, as well as discipline very much because the fundamentals, which those are, get a team through a complete football game. Like Chad mentioned afterwards, the Jets weren't playing on their heels, and that gave them the opportunity to win the game.
