Sunday, November 21, 2010

Snap Cognitive Dissonance With Don Banks

From this week's Snap Judgments column:

If you've seen one Jets game this season, you've seen them all. Not to repeat myself from last Sunday's Snaps, but the resilient Jets are going to find a way to win, no matter how long the game lasts...It must be torture for New York fans to sit through these three-hour high-wire acts every Sunday, but I don't know how you can possibly take exception with the results.

Bah, whatever. The Football Outsiders say that the Jets luck unit leads the league in wins, which I tend to agree with. But I also agree with Don Banks that a win's a win and all that. However, a few paragraphs later, Banks has this to say:

The Ravens wound up making it look like a comfortable win, but if you watched Baltimore's 37-13 conquest of out-manned Carolina, you know better. The Panthers, with the very lightly experienced Brian St. Pierre at quarterback, were within seven points (at 20-13) until late in the third quarter. Baltimore really doesn't close the deal very well this season...

So let's recap:

The Jets, who have needed the last few minutes of regulation or overtime to put away the sub-.500 Dolphins, Vikings, Broncos, Lions, Browns, and Texans, are a thrilling team whose results you can't argue with.

Conversely, the Ravens, who blew out the Dolphins and Broncos, don't close games out very well and therefore, their wins can be easily discounted.

Note: Yes, I'm a Ravens fan. No, I don't think the Ravens are objectively better than the Jets. In fact, I think the Jets would probably win a rematch if they played tomorrow. I just think it's a little ridiculous that Banks and a lot of other media folk are falling over themselves to congratulate the Jets for racking up come from behind wins against teams with losing records.
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8 comments:

  1. Chris WNovember 22, 2010 at 6:21 AM

    I also like the notion that the Jets are a quality team and the Bears are basically guaranteed to fold. That's not to say the Bears are any great shakes, but these teams are pretty fucking similar in my mind. Although the Bears did at least manage to score a single point against the Packers...

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  2. ElliotNovember 22, 2010 at 8:09 AM

    One of the teams is from NY/NJ whereas the other is not. QED.

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  3. blancoNovember 23, 2010 at 6:55 AM

    One of these teams loses to mediocre teams, while the other one beats them.

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  4. Jack MNovember 23, 2010 at 9:09 AM

    The Jets have played three above .500 teams (all of them at home, including the Ravens) and lost two of them. They are certainly the elite team to beat in the NFL.

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  5. blancoNovember 23, 2010 at 9:13 PM

    Poorly written article no doubt, but if you are going to make the argument the Jets aren't amongst the elite, I think you should offer some better explanations.

    Besides ATL who is "more" elite? The Ravens? Two wins against an over .500 team, one of those being Pittsburgh without Big Ben. Pats? Same record as the Jets and lost to them. Pittsburgh? 2-3 against winning teams. Bears? 1 win vs. over .500 teams (same logic you used against the Jets).

    Or should we look at losses to teams .500 and under:
    Jets: 0
    Steelers: 0
    Ravens: 1
    Pats: 1
    Packers: 2
    Bears: 2


    The point is, this can get parsed a number of ways. But aside from ATL it's pretty hard to make a convincing case that any other team is significantly better than the others at the top.

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  6. Jack MNovember 23, 2010 at 9:21 PM

    I never said any team was more elite, but I did say that I thought the Jets would win a rematch with the Ravens. You're the one who introduced the idea that the Jets were far and away the more elite team because the Ravens have an away loss to the Bengals.

    I only said that it's ridiculous that Banks and others are making a huge deal over the Jets' exciting, "clutch" wins over mediocre teams while the Ravens get poo-poohed even while beating comparable teams by larger margins.

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  7. ElliotNovember 24, 2010 at 7:49 AM

    So I went back and looked at the Ravens schedule. They lost to two good teams--the Falcons and the Patriots--and they lost to one mediocre team--the Bengals in week 2.

    Meanwhile the Jets lost to a supposedly inferior Ravens team in week 1, and got their asses kicked by the Packers at home in that shutout. On the other hand, if it wasn't for a miraculous turn of shit, they would have lost to the Broncos a month ago.

    So, yeah, I'm calling bullshit. The Ravens are not as good as the Jets, but when it comes to losing to mediocre teams, the Jets should basically be at the same record as the Ravens.

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  8. blancoNovember 25, 2010 at 9:01 PM

    to jack, my first comment was originally to chris w about the bears and their mediocre losses, not so much the ravens. Personally, the ravens and jets are close, I just have to get on here when people attack the jets "eliteness" when there is no clear "elite" team out there.

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