Well for better or worse, the Jets won yesterday. That’s the best part.
And Taco Bell hero Mark Sanchez stepped up in the fourth quarter and started looking like he did in the first couple weeks and last year’s playoffs: Assertive, confident, and dare I say it — poised.
The Jets’ offensive line mostly stymied the Lions’ pass rush. And Darrelle Revis quieted any lingering doubts about his holdout-related injury and early-season ineffectiveness (by his standards), holding Calvin Johnson to one reception and 13 yards.
But the Jets won in spite of themselves, partly because the Lions seemed driven to match them penalty for penalty, partly because of an inexplicable call after the two-minute warning that saved them about 40 seconds of clock time when they were all out of timeouts.
They were all out of timeouts, it should be noted, because they had to burn two of them to avoid penalties for having too many men on the field on consecutive plays in the fourth quarter. Credit safety James Ihedigbo for his ability to count to 12 and prevent the flags, though the Lions wound up scoring anyway.
Like Rex Ryan said afterward, the win is all that matters. But after dominating opponents for a nice stretch earlier this season, the Jets have started to show strong signs of same-old-Jetsishness, prompting reasonable doubts that they are the Super Bowl-caliber club they were billed to be.
Starting Sunday, the Jets play three games in 11 days, starting with the suddenly hot Browns and culminating in a Thanksgiving Day showdown with the beleaguered Bengals. The Texans fall in the middle there.
It’s a Texans sandwich on Ohio-pro-football bread, and you can bet Rex Ryan is hungry. Will this man complete the sandwich? He looks determined:
Tedquarters 
I dont know if “complete” is the correct word for what Rex would ultimatley do to the sandwich.
I like Rex Ryan, but honestly what is up with the white turtleneck and black sweatervest each week?
They didn’t really stymie the Lions pass rush, the Lions weren’t going for pressure as much as trying to stop the run. Detroit handed the Jets that game on a silver platter when Drew effing Stanton threw the ball instead of keeping the clock running and Julian Peterson… Jesus. If the Jets don’t get their act together, they’re going to be last year’s Ravens. Way overrated.
This is the one time of year I am going to seethe at the thought of your website.
/Mets Lions fan
I’ve seen some people question the Lions’ decision to go for a first down after the 2-minute warning, but I think it was a smart move. A simple 7 yard play and the game is over. That potential outcome outweighs the potential risk, which was giving the Jets an extra 40 seconds to tie the game.
Also, I wouldn’t give any credit Ihedigbo for preventing the flags. What did he prevent? A penalty that would have resulted in a net gain of 1 yard. The Lions were likely to score a TD whether or not a penalty was called, so it was probably better to save the timeouts and take the penalty. I don’t blame Ihedigbo for calling the timeouts, since player are programmed to avoid penalties when they can, but he shouldn’t be praised for the move.
Yeah, I was going to make that same point about the timeouts. But really I just thought it was funny that the same thing basically happened twice and Ihedigbo seemed like the only one paying attention. He is a friend of TedQuarters.