On national Sunday Night in America prime time television, the NY Jets got manhandled by the Baltimore Ravens defense. Poor protection led to Mark Sanchez getting harassed all night long. Sanchez basically handed the ball to the Ravens on several occasions which they gladly ran in for touchdowns.

Really, the Jets offense was embarrassing, which seems to always be the case against top tier defenses. Though, the defense and special teams managed to put points on the board, the offense allowed the Ravens defense to put 21 points on the board. Considering the Jets scored 17 points total, allowing three return touchdowns is certainly not a recipe for success.

Lots of issues existed tonight with several dropped passes, Shonne Greene runs that range from a loss of two to a gain of two, Mark Sanchez holding the ball for too long, Mark Sanchez making poor decisions, and offensive line that without Nick Mangold (injured) is below average at best.

Jets used to be formidable on the road, but in back to back weeks the Jets have lost away games against Oakland and Baltimore, and have to travel to New England next week for a game that is important for the Jets for many reasons, such as the need to avoid falling into the list of teams with losing records. Beating the Jacksonville Jaguars was a nice win, beating the Dallas Cowboys was an exciting, improbable comeback win, but the poor defense in Oakland and the poor offense in Baltimore has this team showing that certain game plans can beat them on one side of the ball.

This inconsistent play has the Jets at 2-2, and in desperate need of a win in New England this coming Sunday. Go Jets, bounce back Mark, Defense we are going to need you to make a couple of game changing plays, and that goes for you too special teams.

The reality, we can’t move the chains, we can’t pass down field, and basically we can’t score points.

Jets Lose 10 – 9 against the Baltimore Ravens. 3 field goals were all that the Jets seemingly more potent offense could muster.

125 yards in penalties kept the Ravens drives alive over and over, with one especially horrid running into the kicker penalty that eventually resulted in the only touchdown of the game.

Sanchez was booed early, and often. At least he didn’t throw any picks or fumble away the game like he usually does.

In the end the Jets had a chance, needing a field goal to win they were driving with less than a minute to go. However, Dustin Kellar decided stopping the clock with a 9.5 yard gain was more important than turning upfield to get the first down. This bonehead play of course happened on 4th down which effectively ended the game by turning the ball over on downs. Simply the worst play of the season so far for the NY Jets, and probably the worst play of the season for all the NFL except Calvin Johnson leaving the ball on the ground in order to begin celebrate was even more boneheaded. Of course the Lions suck and won’t be playing in the playoffs anyway, but if the Jets keep sucking like this they won’t be worried about the playoffs either.

With all of the offseason talk, the Jets are 0-1, and with Tom Brady and Patriots in town this week we could be 0-2 and on our way to a disappointing season. For reals, scoring 3 field goals is not gonna cut it against the Patriots even with our defense playing great.

I don’t know what to say, I want to rant and rant about how pathetic we looked yesterday, how abysmal our offensive play calling was and why the %#@& was wide receiver Braylon Edwards on the special teams punt receiving unit yesterday so that he could inexplicably run as fast as he could into the punter to begin with.

MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL

Now their opponents the Baltimore Ravens are no slouch, with many of the idiotic talking heads projecting the Ravens as Superbowl bound, but hopefully on this day Revis Island and the Jets D can put those thoughts on ice.

Jets are stacked, as much as we have ever been. Obviously, we have something special and entertaining in Head Coach Rex Ryan. So much that he can convince players to get on board the Jets en route to his proclaimed Superbowl bound flight. LT, Jason Taylor, Santonio Holmes and Antonio Cromartie are just a few of the big name new faces we will see tonight, well not Holmes who smoked his way to a 4 game suspension.

Offensive Line looks as good as ever, execpt for the BIG hole at left tackle, but who needs to block the Sanchise’s blindside anyway. Defensively we have big names that will hopefully lead us to another top defensive year.

And we got Sanchise. Who people knock at every opportunity for inadvertantly throwing to the wrong colored jerseys way too often. But he was a rookie, and now as a seasoned veteran – ok thats a stretch – hopefully he will surprise those expecting a sophomore slump like he surprised those who said rookies can’t win playoff games.

I went to the liberty of asking my friend his take on the game, and not to my surprise he of course chose to pick the ‘nevermores’ over the Jets during the opening day game. Here I share his thoughts:

I’ve been running hot in football so here are my picks for the 2 games tonight. All lines are as of when I write this.

Baltimore (+1.5) AT NY Jets

This is going to be ugly, as Flacco is dealing with new receiving corp, and Derrick Mason and Heap are still going to gouge the Jets in the playaction game. Which means Ray Rice will killing it. But, the Jets D is good so killing it will be 70 to 80 yds for him, and 20 points as team. Holding calls and 2 picks by Sanchez are going to doom the D on a possession, as field position is going to be key. The B’More offense will be unspectacular as well, but a little more cohesive. I have Shonn Greene in the fumble pool for this one.

20-16 Ravens (with a 40% chance of Ravens blowout)

Good thing he gets 80% of his picks wrong

A month ago we were 4-6 and lamenting our bad luck as lifelong Jets fans all the while enduring being once again the butt of jokes from those not bleeding the green.

Guess who’s laughing now.

At 7-6 the Jets are in the playoff hunt. Wildcard and Division titles are within our sights, with only 3 games to play. The Dolphins join us at 7-6 and we are both only 1 game behind the 8-5 Patriots for the AFC East division. FYI the Dolphins would hold the tiebreaker over us if it came down to that.  The Wildcard is certainly wild after both the 7-6 Jaguars and 8-5 Broncos lost this week. The 7-6 Ravens big win put them in the wild mix as well. So 5 teams, four at 7-6 and one at 8-5, are fighting for two wildcard playoff spots.

Compared to the other four teams, the Jets have the biggest hill to climb because they pretty much don’t hold any tie breakers and have arguably the toughest schedule going forward. Atlanta, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati is not going to be any kind of piece of cake.  The chance of winning all three is a daunting task, but the Jets momentum from their dominating 26-3 victory on the road against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers could be helpful. On the bright side, Atlanta is reeling and have a back up quarterback, Indianapolis has clinched home field advantage and could be resting players (Peyton Manning) and the Bengals offense can be shut down.

The 26-3 win in Tampa was a mix of Kellen Clemens managing a game as Mark Sanchez’s replacement, Thomas Jones running wild and The NUMBER 1 DEFENSE in the NFL doing what The NUMBER 1 DEFENSE in the NFL do shutting down opponents. In fact, the admittedly pathetic Tampa Bay offense didn’t get their first first down until the third quarter, and even that was after a personal foul penalty against the Jets defense.

OK, I hope I am not getting my hopes up to high, but I like our chances. The best defense in the league and a running game, that definitely spells possibilities. Let’s take this one game at a time.

Go Jets.