NFL Week 11 Byes: The Good (Dallas, Baltimore), the Bad (Jacksonville), and the Jets
By Andrew Garda
We take a look back and a look forward for each of the NFL teams on bye in Week 11.
We’ve reached Week 11 of the NFL season, and the second to last week of byes. Only four teams get a break this time out, though the New York Jets are wisely continuing to practice for part of the week.
Listen folks, a 2-8 record just doesn’t come naturally—it takes hard work.
The Dallas Cowboys, Jacksonville Jaguars and Baltimore Ravens join the Jets on break and each team has a bit of retooling to do, though admittedly some have more than others.
It’s a real Clint Eastwood setup.
Let’s take a look at each team in this, the penultimate edition of bye week breakdowns.
The Good
It’s hard to tell exactly how good either team is here. Baltimore feels like a “soft 6-4” right now and Dallas feels like they are one injury away from a disaster.
On the other hand, both teams are in the hunt for a playoff spot and both teams aren’t far off from a division title. We’re more sold on Dallas than Baltimore right now. Why?
Well, let’s take a look.
Dallas Cowboys
You can still be worried about Tony Romo’s back, despite his excellent performance against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday in London. We know he’s not 100 percent and fractures don’t heal themselves in a week, so he won’t likely be 100 percent when they face the New York Giants in MetLife Stadium on November 23rd.
Then it’s off to Philadelphia for a tough game against the Eagles (the first of two in three weeks), and Chicago for a game that looks easy against the Bears. Then it’s the Eagles again (this time at Philadelphia) and the Colts, capped off by a game in Washington.
Through all this, Romo needs to stay on the field. If you look at the NFC, Wild Cards are going to be hard to come by. With the exception of the NFC South, every division has at least one team which looks like a possible qualifier. Dallas is trying to outrun Detroit, Green Bay, Arizona, Seattle, San Francisco and maybe Minnesota. Sure, two of those teams will be division winners and others will collapse, but that’s still a lot of bodies to crawl over.
Of course, they could win the NFC East, but will need to overtake Philadelphia on the way. Those two games will decide the division.
All in all, it’s hard to imagine them winning a lot of the games listed if Brandon Weeden is their quarterback even if DeMarco Murray is basically carrying the team on his back. So they’d best hope Romo is good to go.
Baltimore Ravens
Ravens fans won’t like this, but it’s hard to take the team seriously as a contender. You can only play the teams they tell you to, but the Ravens have beaten some awful teams to get to 6-4.
Carolina, Tampa Bay, Atlanta and Tennessee are all sub-.500 teams. The Browns and Steelers are better, but the Ravens split their series with Pittsburgh and were swept by Cincinnati.
Suddenly that Week 17 game against Cleveland could loom large and it’s a much more effective team than it was back when Baltimore beat them in Week 2.
It’s a tight division, and all four teams are still in the hunt, but the Ravens haven’t really beaten anyone in a way that makes you feel they will come out on top.
Maybe it’s also the uninspiring play by quarterback Joe Flacco, who has been pretty inconsistent this season. Or perhaps it’s the defense, ranked No. 21 against the pass.
Or maybe we’re sleeping on them.
We might not know more for a while either. The Ravens head to New Orleans and take on a shaky Saints team, then welcome the Chargers to Baltimore. The Chargers have their own problems, having made everyone doubt them when they forgot to get off the bus in Miami in Week 9.
Games against Jacksonville and Houston shouldn’t be big tests, which brings us back to that Week 17 game against Cleveland.
That might just be for all the marbles in the division.
The Bad
Jacksonville Jaguars
While they aren’t good, they didn’t quite fit the definition of ugly. The Jaguars are a team which is still has work to do (clearly) but seems to be making some strides.
While he turns the ball over too much, starting Blake Bortles was the right decision. They were going to have to do it anyway, and now he will have a year under his belt when he enters the 2015 NFL season. They missed on Tony Gerhart, but Denard Robinson has proven to be a keeper. Their new receivers have looked OK but plagued by injuries. Allen Robinson was especially effective, but he’s now done for the season with a broken foot, per NFL.com’s Marc Sessler.
The defense has been inconsistent—it’s clear they have some pieces to work with there as well, but not enough of them.
Jacksonville has some tough games after the bye, but also some very winnable ones.
First they head to Indianapolis to play the Colts, which is likely to end badly for them. However, the New York Giants and Houston Texans are games they could win, as is the Week 16 game against the Tennessee Titans. The Baltimore Ravens in Week 15 is likely a loss.
But aside from that and the Colts games, there are wins left on the schedule and a chance for the Jaguars to end the season on a high note.
The Ugly
New York Jets
The Jets came away with a big win against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, but as mentioned above, aren’t resting on their laurels.
It’s hard to rest on your laurels when you have two wins, one of which came in Week 1 against a team which still hasn’t managed a win itself.
The Jets are a mess and what is worse, they are a mess which is managing to play worse than the talent they have. Yes, believe it or not, there is indeed talent on the New York Jets. The front seven on defense is filled with incredibly skilled players, some of which are among the best in the NFL. Percy Harvin and Eric Decker are good receivers and Chris Ivory is a solid running back.
Sure, the secondary is a black hole of talent and the general manager somehow thought that a Rex Ryan defense didn’t need cornerbacks, but the Jets are better than their 2-8 record.
This makes sense though, as they were never as good as their 8-8 record last season.
We could talk about the rest of the season and how they might turn it around, but it’s been so bad it’s hard to fathom anything more than survival. Can the Jets beat the Dolphins or Bills? Normally you assume a 50/50 shot for any AFC East division games but this season it’s no guarantee.
Even the games against Tennessee and Minnesota look like long shots.
The real question for the Jets is, where do they go from here? What will they do this offseason? Is Rex Ryan gone? And if he is, should GM John Idzik go, or do the Jets roll with him and see what he does with another offseason?
Do the Jets draft a quarterback high next season? Do they consider Michael Vick for another year? What about Geno Smith?
How do they fix the secondary?
These are all big questions looming for the Jets and they have very little to do with what is happening on the field.
The second half of the Jets season is about getting a few wins and everyone playing for their job.
Then the real work comes, once Week 17 is done.
More from FanSided
- NFL rumors: Aaron Rodgers sets Jets up for Super Bowl run with new contract
- MLB Trade Grades: Dodgers land Amed Rosario from Guardians
- Colorado gives Pac-12 a possible death knell with move to Big 12
- NFL rumors: Dalvin Cook suitor maintaining very ‘real’ interest
- Braves get dose of bad news on Max Fried as ace nears return