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More people blowing the Jets loss . . .
. . . out of proportion today.
Bad loss; no edge-rush; inconsistent offensive line play and so forth, but not an upset by any stretch of the imagination.
People ask brilliant questions like “why did you the team come out flat” or “did you guys overlook the Bengals” but that nonsense had nothing to do with a Jets team losing to a Cincinnati club they were not better than.
Sometimes you need to throw won-loss records in the garbage when evaluating matchups.
The Raiders came into MetLife Stadium two weeks ago with a winning record, and the Jets blew them out.
Dallas came into Metlife Stadium with a winning record and the Jets beat them as well.
You have to look beyond the records when evaluating games.
For instance, look at the talent on the Bengals’ defensive line. That group, featuring Carlos Dunlap, Geno Atkins, Carl Lawson, Andrew Billings and Sam Hubbard, quite honestly, is better than the Jets’ defensive line.
And you combine that with them facing the Jets’ patchwork line, where both guards who started the season are done for the season, and the Jets have had a revolving door at center and both tackle spots.
That Bengals D-Line dominated a Jets line being held together by bailing wire and duct tape.
I apologize to the people who consider this a “historic” loss, but it wasn’t.
I apologize to the people who love listening to Joe Benigno sound like a mental patient after games like this, but any clear-thinking person knows this loss wasn’t an upset.
Especially when the Bengals announced during the week that they were going back to veteran Andy Dalton at QB. Dalton gives the Bengals a much better chance to win than Ryan Findley, who the Bengals kicked the tires on for a few games.
The Bengals barely lost to Oakland and Pittsburgh the previous two games with Finley. Their defense played well in these games, but Finley added little.
So they figured, we are so close to getting our first win, let’s bring Dalton back, get a “W.”
And they did just that.
Sam Darnold would have had a big advantage over Finley, but not Dalton. Some might give Dalton the edge there with Darnold showing flashes, but still learning.
And with Cordy Glenn returning at left tackle, the Jets got almost no blindside pressure on Dalton, aside from a Brian Poole blitz from that side.
Glenn made a big difference in this game and illustrated how bad the Jets edge rush is, a problem that must be fixed this off-season. Enough kicking the can down the road on this problem.
This wasn’t an upset, not a big surprise, and the people making into that are either hacks or opportunists.
The Jets aren’t a very good team right now, and they got beat by another not very good team.
If that is historical, I have lost my sense of history.
Joe Douglas has a lot of work to do this off-season fixing a broken roster.
With one of the biggest needs being game-wrecking edge rushers.
Not sure how you win consistently in a passing league without them.
December 2, 2019
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