Keidel: Despite Heartbreaking Weeks, Jets And Giants Should Still Make Playoffs
By Jason Keidel
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Despite the apocalyptic feel from this last weekend, the fog over the Meadowlands isn't nearly as thick as it looks.
Both the Jets and Giants lost games in painful ways, but both gained some clarity. Especially the Giants (5-5), who went wire to wire with the Super Bowl champs. We can parse the particulars, but the truth is the Giants are perched in first place.
Ever since Sunday, WFAN host Craig Carton has argued that the Giants -- through bad luck, bad plays and blown calls -- could easily have an 8-2 record and a bulging lead in the division.
You hate to assume wins or losses retroactively, but all agree that the Giants, except for the wretched performance against Philadelphia, are a ball or two or a bounce or two from a wholly different season. It's not a stretch to suppose a win or two, as the Giants were ahead in the fourth quarter in every game except that football bomb they dropped in Philly.
The Dallas and Atlanta games were full-blown gags, with double-digit bulges in both in the final quarter. And they were 50 seconds from vanquishing Brady & Belichick before a bungled interception by Landon Collins. Yours truly wrote on Friday that the seven points were way too much, that the G-Men had the Pats' collective number. And despite the doomsday clichés entering the game, the Giants had the Pats beaten. Until they didn't.
The Giants have teetered on the .500 ledge before. It's become a kind of football signature for them, a soap operatic bent that has defined them since 2007, when they also lost to the Pats -- at home -- at the last moment. That season ended in fine fashion. Granted, that team was palpably more gifted that this one. But as Boomer & Carton asserted on Tuesday morning, there is no team in either conference -- particularly in the enervated NFC -- that sends fearful chills up Big Blue's spine.
The return of JPP has clearly energized the enervated defensive line. Eli Manning continues to be epically cool, and is perhaps playing the best ball of his sublime, though occasionally inconsistent career.
Similarly, the Jets (5-4) just lost a gut-wrenching game at home to a team they had wobbling on the ropes. While the Giants must feel like the Pats are in their NFC East, the Bills really are in the Jets' division. So it was a bit more biting to lose to the Bills.
And to Rex Ryan, of course, whose sideline spasms were those of a man who just won the Super Bowl, probably a main reason he's never played in one. He has no self-control, discipline or perspective. Part of his charm, of course, is his gaseous monologues. But he's getting too old, as is his act, for his preteen gyrations and trucker's tongue.
But I digress. Rex is lounging 400 miles north, and Todd Bowles is bowling for NFL dollars. After a 4-1 start, Gang Green has hit the first speed bump of Bowles' first HC gig.
This is when the cynics assert that the Jets have returned to their underwhelming reality, nostrils barely above the .500 waters, lucky just to be in the Patriots' shadow and an eyelash behind in the wild-card race.
But the Jets still have arguably the best defense in the sport. If Chris Ivory can return to October form, and if Ryan Fitzpatrick can toss the rock with impunity after surgery on his left thumb, then they have an offense almost as finely tuned for the playoffs.
Eric Decker and Brandon Marshall are the kind of rugged receivers who can run in the snow and slush of January. Ivory has the stampeding style of winter. The defensive line is the best in football. Between the "Sons of Anarchy" and new addition Leonard Williams, perhaps no team in the league can chase the quarterback as well sans the blitz. They have an odd chasm at tight end, and you pray Nick Mangold can stay in one piece for two more months.
No one expects Fitzpatrick to win Super Bowl 50. No one expects the Jets to leapfrog the Pats in the AFC East, to win their next game in New England. But as we saw on Monday night in Cincinnati, no one is unbeatable. Even the unbeaten Pats, whom the Jets beat in New England in the playoffs not that long ago. So if the road to playoff prosperity runs through Foxboro, the Jets have a map.
The Jets played as poorly as possible for three quarters against the Bills, yet were still 13 yards from winning the game. Enter the feeling that Bowles' bona fides aren't there in his rookie campaign, his dubious clock management flaring up at the worst times.
But Tom Coughlin, as seasoned a sideline strategist as you'll find east of Belichick, has suffered his share of brain cramps after the two-minute warning.
To quote captain obvious, the Jets and Giants won't play each other in Levi's Stadium. But they should play in the playoffs. They are good enough and competent enough. But are they confident enough?
Follow Jason on Twitter @JasonKeidel.
