FanPost

Could the Jets be a 10-win team?

First, thanks to Broadway Jose for inspiring me to write this (not that it’s such a great post as to require inspiration…).

In the aftermath of last night’s win, Mr. Jose said "I can’t take any of this "Lets not get ahead of ourself" stuff right now. That was the best win we’ve had in a long, long time." In that spirit, I am going to get ahead of myself and do a little prognosticating as a fun thought exercise. I encourage you all to do the same.

Currently the Jets stand at 3-2 with a woeful Steelers team on the slate for next week. That leaves 11 games left. To make the playoffs, a team typically needs to make it to around the 10 win mark. Obviously there have been seasons when 11 wins weren’t enough and when 8 wins were just enough, but let’s say 10 is the mark to hit for the purposes of this post.

So, can the Jets get to 10 wins?

First, let’s list the schedule so that you don’t have to Google it yourself.

Sun, Oct 13

vs.

Steelers

1:00 PM (ET)

Sun, Oct 20

vs.

Patriots

1:00 PM (ET)

Sun, Oct 27

@

Bengals

4:05 PM (ET)

Sun, Nov 3

vs.

Saints

1:00 PM (ET)

Sun, Nov 17

@

Bills

1:00 PM (ET)

Sun, Nov 24

@

Ravens

1:00 PM (ET)

Sun, Dec 1

vs.

Dolphins

1:00 PM (ET)

Sun, Dec 8

vs.

Raiders

1:00 PM (ET)

Sun, Dec 15

@

Panthers

4:05 PM (ET)

Sun, Dec 22

vs.

Browns

1:00 PM (ET)

Sun, Dec 29

@

Dolphins

1:00 PM (ET)

As it stands now, we need seven more wins. Now, there isn’t a single game in the league that is 100% certain (except maybe the Denver Peytons vs. Jacksonville this week). But I think we can have reasonable confidence of beating the Steelers, Raiders and Panthers. It wouldn’t be a shock to lose one of those games but we shouldn’t, so let’s leave it at that.

That puts us four wins away. If we can split our remaining division games (1 each vs Buf/NE and 2 left against Miami), then we will be close. I know some people will say that’s far-fetched and they may be right. We barely beat the Bills previously and it was a home game. We lost to the Pats previously and they had a group of receivers that don’t catch as well as some college cheerleaders. Miami is also a good team this year, maybe the best in the division.

But the Bills are still the Bills, with a rookie QB that can be gotten to and a defensive line that can be handled (as we showed in the first game). The Pats game will be at home for us and who knows what the NE receiving corp looks like in that game (will Dola/Gronk be back?). Maybe Geno doesn’t have as many turnovers this time around due to a less hostile environment and a conscious effort to protect the ball.

And while Miami looks good, they have still given up plenty of points while their offense has looked out of sync. If those problems aren’t addressed by the time we face them, it could make for a competitive game.

None of the division games are a given either way, but winning two of the four is very douzable. That would put us at eight wins.

So, can we pull out two more wins from road games at Cincy and Baltimore and home games with New Orleans and Cleveland?

The Saints will almost certainly light up our defense as the Ryan brothers go head to head, so it’s tough to say we win that one. The rest are tough to predict. Baltimore isn’t as good as it was at the end of last season, but the Ravens still show signs of being a good (if schizophrenic) team. Cleveland and Cincy are both solidly improved, but it’s still hard to say what to expect of them.

I would guess we beat Cleveland. Can we grab one more win to get to 10?

It’s too close to call, in my opinion (but if I were forced to choose, I say no). What do you guys think?

This is a FanPost written by a registered member of this site. The views expressed here are those of the author alone and not those of anybody affiliated with Gang Green Nation or SB Nation.