Playoff hopes for Jets in hands of ‘football gods’

The Jets can only control what they can control, and beating the Patriots is tough enough as it is.

“That is the ultimate goal”. “We have to win out”. You just have to focus on what we can control.

“We’ve got more than enough talent”. But if the Jets win twice and the Chiefs wind up winning the AFC West, the Jets could get in as a wild card because they own the tiebreaker over Denver. The Broncos face the Bengals and Chargers in the final two weeks.

When it comes to “analytics” in football, there are coaches who detest its existence and there are coaches that say they use analytics so as not to appear behind the times when the team owner calls them in to ask them about analytics. “But we’ve got to try to win our last two games”.

And, for myriad reasons – from SpyGate to Eric Mangini to Ryan’s endless refusals to kiss Bill Belichick’s ring(s) – the Patriots never need to summon incentive to win a game at the Meadowlands, where Belichick made his name, crafted his game, and left the Jets in a lurch way back when. That started a 1-4 stretch that ended with a 24-17 defeat to the Texans in Houston.

New England could clinch home-field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs with one more win, either against the Jets or in the final weekend at Miami. “We’ve got great chemistry”, linebacker Calvin Pace said.

“Sometimes that’€™s not the case because you might be finished playing but the other team is still playing, or even if they play at one o’€™clock as well you wouldn’€™t have that game available”, Belichick said. “We can’t hang from the rafters right now because of a little win streak”. The Chiefs are favored by almost a touchdown in this one and we can only hope the Baltimore pulls off a major upset. Fitzpatrick is on his fourth team in four years and was viewed as a guy who could manage games for the Jets, but not win them.

Scenario 2 (Chiefs and Steelers finish 11-5).

“The one thing I can say, we have stayed the course”. “Listen to Coach Bowles, with the things he is preaching week in and week out”. I’m happy. Proud of everybody.

Chiefs over Ravens: None of what we’re talking about matters unless the Chiefs keep winning. “That is what you have to have if you are trying to make a run to get in this tournament”. “I watched the end of the Denver-Pittsburgh game”.

In the run-up to their October 25 meeting in Foxborough, which the Patriots won, 30-23, the Jets repeatedly referred to it as just “another game”.

That’s the reality Todd Bowles and his players are facing, knowing they have no control over their postseason destiny. “We know how good they are and they’re the Super Bowl champs, so we’ve got to clean up a lot of mistakes before we get to them”.