Peter King's Selective Analysis Displays Media's Group Think

I need to take issue with part of Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback column today.

I've blown up the Fine Fifteen, promoting the Packers and demoting the Jets. I admire the Jets quite a bit for their late-game moxie, and it's all about the W's, but in the past three weeks they've had to fight to the death to beat two- (Detroit), three- (Cleveland) and four-win (Houston) teams. I'm giving Green Bay BCS style points for winning three in a row by a combined 85-10.

Oh boy. Whenever a ranking system cites the worst system of rating teams in sports as an inspiration, we are in trouble.

King had the Jets ranked second in last week's Fine Fifteen. The first spot was vacant, though, stating there was no dominant team in the league. This week King jumped Atlanta and Green Bay ahead of the Jets. That's fair enough. Both teams are playing fantastic football. The Packers pounded the Jets a few weeks ago. The third team he jumped ahead of the Jets loses me.

2. New England (8-2). Tom Brady said he wishes he could have done more in the fourth quarter to help the Patriots win. Admirable, but 31 points is a good day's work in that rivalry. And oh, by the way, another tight-end touchdown for the Patriots. That's nine now, in 10 games.

Wait a minute. The reason the Jets dropped is they have to fight bad teams to the death. The Jets barely beat a three win Cleveland team. Didn't New England lose to that same three win team by 20? The Jets struggled to beat two win Detroit. Didn't the Pats have a home game against two win Buffalo where the Bills had the ball with a chance to tie with under 4:00 left? Blowing a big lead to four win Houston counts against the Jets. How about when the Pats had a 17 point fourth quarter lead against four win San Diego, and allowed the Chargers to rally to the point where they had the ball with a chance to win it at the end of the game. They did the same thing yesterday to the Colts. The Patriots have had plenty of similar struggles. They also have a 14 point head to head loss to the Jets.

I'm not going to sit here and say Peter King is an idiot. He's not. He's a great writer. Elsewhere in his column he makes a very compelling point for the reasons teams will look internally to fill coaching vacancies (bad news for those of us hoping Brian Schottenheimer finds a job and leaves). This problem is greater.

It displays the lack of original thought in the media. I have heard plenty of people call the Jets lucky. I haven't heard anybody make the same argument about the Pats. Does anybody question whether a team with the 17th ranked offense in the league and the 30th ranked defense might be putting up a league best record with smoke and mirrors? The media just keeps repeating the same points. There's no original thought or analysis.

Are the Jets better than the Patriots? I don't know. There's a chance the Pats blow New York out in Foxborough in a few weeks. I don't particularly care about power rankings. What I take issue with is many in the media point out the Jets' warts while ignoring many similar ones in the Patriots.