Everyone pegged the Jets as a 0-16 team, but all of a sudden they’re on a two-game winning streak and prove they can’t even tank right.
No matter who much anyone says they know the NFL, that person is lying to you. Everyone pegged the New York Jets as a team that would struggle to win a single game this year, but now Josh McCown’s squad is on a two-game winning streak.
New York needed overtime to beat the Jaguars but have now evened its record at 2-2 on the year in a suddenly winnable AFC East. Topsy-turvy doesn’t begin to describe whatever is going on in that division, where the Bills are a game better than the Patriots and the Jets are tied for second-place.
It won’t last, and that has to be the frustration mixing with the odd sense of joy that Jets fans are feeling. I know a few Jets fans, though, and if there’s one thing they’re cursed to never feel it’s joy. Whether it’s the back-to-back AFC Championship game losses to the butt fumble to limping into this season with nothing to look forward to than a high draft pick. In true Jets fashion, the team can’t even lose right.
We’re only four weeks into the season, and the chances are the worst team in football will have at least two wins. The Browns are currently gunning for that top pick, but the Jets can probably rest easy knowing that two wins will likely still be good for a top-3 selection.
The thing about that is the Jets were locked in for the top pick, and now that seems to be in jeopardy. All to beat the Dolphins and the Jaguars.
Maybe the Jets aren’t a bad team, and we were simply wrong about them. Josh McCown was so good in Chicago that he initiated the eventual ejection of Jay Cutler, and the defense has parts of it that are attractive. Todd Bowles has struggled as a head coach but he has to ability to make something out of nothing, as he did with a defense in Arizona that shot to the top of the league.
New York is inexplicably winning its way out of the No. 1 pick in the draft, but maybe that’s not bad either. For a team that historically picks the wrong guy in the draft, giving that team the top pick in the draft and asking to not screw it up is asking a lot.
Of course, Jets fans are perpetually joyless and will be the first to tell you that the team can’t even tank right. But don’t let the pundits tell you the Jets winning games is actually the team losing. There will still be a high draft pick in the team’s future and they’ll be able to retain some dignity in the process.