Dyer: Jets Can Prove That the Future is Now
A month ago, the New York Jets didn’t have a future. Now, they not only have a future – and an exciting one at that – they have every reason to be excited about what their presence this year holds.
The Jets are no longer a joke. The Jets are very much for real.
They are, against all conventional wisdom, showing that they are a team that can compete and win not just tomorrow, but now.
Winners of three straight, the Jets are suddenly a team where the pieces are coming together. They have endured a bizarre year, one that is cuckoo even by this organization’s lofty standard for the bizarre. And yet the Jets, 1-7 a month ago, have become a united team.
Four weeks ago, the locker room was fractured, with star safety Jamal Adams wanting out after a bungled attempt by the front office to listen to trade offers for the Pro Bowl talent. The star quarterback, who earlier in the year had been diagnosed with mono, was being ridiculed when cameras picked up a comment made on the sidelines that he was seeing “ghosts” during a nationally televised loss to their rival.
Head coach Adam Gase was as unpopular was he was when he was hired in January, a fact not surprising since the Jets handed the winless Dolphins their first victory of the season just that week. And of course, fans were protesting Gase, raising money and flying a plane over Manhattan with a banner demanding his firing.
And yet here are the Jets now. They sit at 4-7 with two winnable games over as many weeks. There is a chance for the Jets to be in December and actually playing meaningful football. Sure, they remain a longshot to make the playoffs but this is a team that couldn’t even beat the winless Dolphins a month ago.
That the playoffs are now even a possibility, no matter how remote, is a testament to everyone from Gase and the locker room to general manager Joe Douglas.
The Cincinnati Bengals, though the record reads 0-11 they are an improved team in recent weeks, are slated for Sunday. They won’t be a pushover, as evidenced by veteran quarterback Andy Dalton being named the starter this week.
The Bengals will want to beat the Jets, especially after two tight losses the past two Sundays. The Bengals are trending up and the Jets mustn’t look past a team that literally has nothing to play for.
There is no denying that the Jets have come together over the past three weeks. This is the type of game, however, where they will need to show their mettle. They are expected to win and beat up on the Bengals, a bit of a trap game that has tripped up this franchise so many times over the decades.
Now the Jets, a team clearly in the midst of a rebuild, are proving something to the doubters and the cynics.
Here they are, winning games now. They have beaten legitimate teams with playoff ambitions this year in the Dallas Cowboys and last weekend in the Oakland Raiders. They’ve also beaten some bad teams as well. Good teams do that.
And the Jets will have the chance on Sunday against the winless Bengals to prove that they’re becoming a good team. They aren’t there yet. But a season that was supposed to be all about the rebuild now has much more meaning.
This season hinges on the performance in Cincinnati. Win on Sunday and they make another statement.
And why not?
The Jets franchise quarterback of the future is playing error-free football and stepping up with big throws under pressure. The offensive line, still a mish-mash of personnel, is gelling. The defense is growing and the once disgruntled Adams has put together the best three weeks of his NFL career during this winning streak.
Gase has never wavered in his approach or his conviction on how to pursue this rebuild. Now he has the Jets ready to be more than a team of the future.
The expectation now isn’t for the Jets to merely compete and develop. This team is expected to win games and continue to grow. The two no longer are mutually exclusive.
Just like Gase and his players had been saying all along.
