Beating Buffalo next week will not be easy, Rex wants to win that game in the worst way, and the last thing he wants is the Jets, the team that just fired him, clinching a playoff berth on his home field.
So getting that win will not be easy, but if we can get it, IMO this team might have a Super Bowl run in them.
Its time to face some facts about this team, Jets fans, and some facts about the opposition too.
First on the Jets. This Jets team is no fluke. We have one of the best defenses in football, if not the best, and our offense is pretty damn good too.
They have a nice RBBC stable with Ivory and Powell leading the way and Ridley showing glimpses of his old self, before he injured his knee. He's not all the way back, but enough to be a nice third RB in the rotation. Ivory is a bruiser and Powell is showing more burst than he ever has in his career prior to this year.
As for the WR's, we have two BIG WR's who present a matchup nightmare, three when Enunwa catches the ball (admittedly an adventure), but these guys are a physical mismatch. Marshall is an ELITE #1, Decker is an ELITE #2, and Enunwa is probably bigger and faster than both of them, and a terrific downfield blocker too.
Last but not least, I GET IT, I was not a Fitzpatrick believer either, truth be told, I was one of his harshest critics in the off-season, I thought starting Fitzpatrick was a recipe to play .500 ball at best, AT BEST, so I totally get why its still hard for some people to imagine Ryan Fitzpatrick winning the Super Bowl, after all, we're talking about a career journeyman who is on his fifth of sixth team and its hard for such a player to break the perception that he is the living, breathing definition of JAG (Just Another Guy), but at some point you have to acknowledge that the SOB is having a career year with the Jets, not unlike Vinny in 98, another veteran nomad who was no longer viewed as a guy you could win a championship with, most people viewed him as a mistake prone bust, another Jeff George, million dollar arm and a ten cent head, then he came to the Jets and BY FAR had the best year of his career, a legit MVP candidate, and I would argue Ryan Fitzpatrick has done much the same. You don't have a WR duo breaking all sorts of franchise records if you don't have a QB who is getting them the ball and giving them multiple opportunities week after week to make plays. So while the Fitzpatrick from the past couldn't win you a SB, that doesn't mean THIS VERSION can't. IMO he sure as heck can.
Lastly, the opposition, particularly in the AFC, has never been more beatable. We just beat the best team in the AFC, and while it may have taken OT to do so, nobody who watched that game and knows anything at all about football can tell me the Jets didn't out-play the Patriots for most of that game. The Jets should have won that game by at least two touchdowns, if the score was going to reflect the degree to which we out-played NE, and I would argue we out-played them the first time we played them too, only we let that one slip away. So this was no fluke. We've played NE about 125 minutes this year, and IMO we've out-played them in close to 100 of those minutes, and thats the consensus "team to beat" in the AFC.
Who else scares you?
Who else in the AFC can't we beat if we can beat Buffalo next week and get into the dance?
Cincinnati with AJ McCarron at QB?
Denver with Brock Osweiller?
KC with Alex Smith?
Houston with Brian Hoyer?
Which one of these teams are the Jets incapable of beating, including New England?
So yeah, crazy as it sounds, if this team can get by Buffalo, this team just might have a SB run in them.