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Now there’s a reason I wanted to wait until after this week’s games to write my article, foregoing the celebratory article after the win over Carolina. There’s a reason I didn’t write immediately after the subsequent victory over Buffalo north of the border. There’s even a reason I waited until after Green Bay’s win over the Ravens tonight.
The reason of course is hope.
Funny thing hope. It ties in nicely with optimism and the eternal question of whether the glass is half full or not. Until the Jets took the field against the Panthers a couple of weeks ago, the season looked to be in dire peril. The Patriots were playing well and the AFC East was becoming ever more competitive due to Miami’s resurgence. Then the unthinkable happened; the Patriots lost two in a row for the first time since 2006. The Wild Card race was opened up by key losses around the Conference and the Jets were suddenly on the outskirts of a playoff spot.
Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” Spot on Dr King. The Jets are one of these teams that disappoints then all of a sudden, they are back in the running for something exciting. It’s like being told you cannot do something and will not succeed only to think, ‘hold on for a second, we can do this’, screw what you say.
Not the greatest of performances against Carolina but a win nonetheless. After his benching, Kerry Rhodes showed why he is a perennial all-pro by intercepting two Delhomme passes,  only for Darrelle Revis to match this feat, also returning one for a score. Saying that the Jets’ secondary outfoxed Delhomme however, is like saying you are the smart kid on the short bus, not much to brag about. This was important all the same. More important, was the rest of the D limiting the Panthers duo of Stewart and Williams to a mere 75 yards and Steve Smith accumulating a massive 5 yards on one catch – more on that later. Thomas Jones put in another solid shift on the ground, adding his 9th score of the season in the 2nd quarter and Cotchery continued his comeback with a good game. Other than this, it was a game of turnovers and while the Panthers struggled to get anything going, Revis and Jones’ TDs came off interceptions, shutting down another ‘power offense’.
Interest re-peaked in this season.
After a shootout in the Bayou where the Patriots secondary looked like schoolkids playing Madden on rookie setting, the Jets were only two games behind in the AFC East. Added  pleasure came in seeing Meachem and Henderson both getting stupidly long touchdowns on the way to making Belichick and Brady look like they were going to head home and cry into each others’ arms. Next up were the Bills in Toronto.
In spite of a crappy and boring and uninteresting and slow and poor and tedious and unexciting etc. etc. etc. game back at the Medowlands, the Jets knew they could win against the Bills no matter where they were playing. On short rest, Sanchez and the crew came out strong despite Braylon Edwards showing why I would not trust him to carry a newly born and went ahead on a score after Clowney being denied a clear TD toss in just prior to this. From this point, the defense did what the defense does with Revis exhibiting again why I think he is the best shutdown corner in the league by far – more on this to come.
 Jones had another 100 yard game, taking his consecutive 1000 yard season streak to 5 and Edwards at least padded his stats with a score. Clemens came in in the 3rd to cover for Sanchez and proved why all his supporters are wrong. He was sacked a lot, fumbled and missed his receivers. I just hope that Sanchez is back this week in Tampa – we need him. The game ended as it started, with a fizzle and the Jets were all set to prepare for Tampa. The only niggling concern is Sanchez’s injury and whether he will find his way back to the starting line-up by the game at the Raymond James stadium in sunny Florida.
The Sunday after, the Patriots rolled into Miami with a chip on their shoulder and lost...again. The Ravens lost another game, leaving the AFC East and Wild Card race wide open. With the Colts and Bengals hopefully going to be resting players in Weeks 16 and 17, winning out should be our goal. Should this happen, the playoffs will loom. I just hope that the team realises this and doesn’t slip up against vastly inferior opposition in the form of the Buccaneers.
Closing by returning to Dr. King’s quote, we have to accept the losses that have already befallen us rather than looking at our division wondering how it would look if the games against the Dolphins and Bills went differently. I have hope. Rex Ryan has hope. Mark Sanchez and the rest of the team has hope. Now, it is time to deliver.
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