The Jets finally won a game and after nearly a year of losing every game, the reactions are ranged. Many Jets fans knew the cost of victory. The one win might have all but sealed the number one pick going to Jacksonville rather than New York. In a normal year, there isn’t such a strong motivation to grab the number one pick, the problem is that this year, Trevor Lawrence is on the board. Trevor Lawrence is regarded as one of the best quarterback prospects the game has seen and anyone who watches him play knows how good he is.
However, a victory has to be celebrated and some are thrilled by the win. The Jets won’t be going down in infamy. It’s hard to remember the teams that went 1-15 but it’s very easy to remember 0-16. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers went 0-14 in 1976, the Detriot Lions went 0-16 in 2008, and the Cleveland Browns went 0-16. The Jets are now guaranteed to finish 1-15. As sorry and lost as this season has been, they will still just be another bad team in NFL history but not the bad team in NFL history.
The victory itself
Things looked different when the Jets jumped out to an early lead. Like the Browns in 2016, the early lead in the sole victory started to bring optimism that this could be the winner. The Jets scored first and built a 13-0 lead. Sam Darnold looked different and the defense looked like a pro-defense for the first time in a while. The halftime score was 13-3 and while the Jets have been the statistical worst, they looked like they were poised to steal this victory.
Sam Darnold has been an exceptionally bad quarterback in the second half of games this year. It goes without saying that his career has been destroyed by Adam Gase but today felt different. There were no interceptions, no boneheaded throws, and enough third-quarter offense to give the Jets a 23-10 lead. The Rams have looked like one of the Super Bowl teams throughout this season. Yet the offense could only do so much in the fourth quarter to comeback against the pitiful Jets.
How is the Jets win a loss?
The first and most obvious is losing Trevor Lawrence. As mentioned before, Lawrence is the type of quarterback that you go all-in for. The Jets didn’t intend to be this bad but almost accidentally have been. Adam Gase has been awful, the defense did lose many stars but wasn’t good, to begin with. The Jets, unfortunately, will now be behind in the draft order to the Jacksonville Jaguars, a team that was planning this tank from before last season. The Jaguars also accidentally won a game but since then have lost every game they played to find themselves in the driver’s seat.
The long term losses might not be as catastrophic when you consider that Adam Gase should be fired anyway. The irony of Gase, as mentioned last week, is that he was brought in to help with Darnold’s development. Now in year three of the 2018 class, it’s safe to say Darnold least developed of all the starters. The big problem this win can create is the potential of the front office wanting to keep Sam Darnold. The Jets may not be able to draft Lawrence. But, they can still draft a top quarterback like Justin Fields and be able to restart the franchise. If they keep Darnold, they hinder that ability, he also needs a change of scenery.
