NFL history is filled with teams enjoying rapid turnarounds, as recently as the Bengals reaching the Super Bowl last season after compiling a 6-25-1 record over the previous two years.
No one should be ready to proclaim the Giants or the Jets as Super Bowl contenders at their respective stages of rebuilding, but a 7-3 combined start certainly beats the alternative of the eight victories — against 26 losses! — totaled by the two local gridiron squads in 2021.
Week 6 of the current campaign began Thursday night with the Commanders’/Bears’ xx-x decision over the (losing team), and we will learn more about the potential playoff chances of the Giants and the Jets against top opponents on Sunday.
Wilson and the 3-2 Jets will be in Green Bay to face the Packers, one game after Aaron Rodgers and Co. were shut down in the second half and upset by the Giants in London.
The Jets dropped two of their first three games while Zach Wilson was sidelined with a knee injury suffered during the preseason, but they’ve posted two consecutive wins with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2021 draft back in the lineup, including last week’s 40-17 rout of the Dolphins.
Rookie running back Breece Hall has scored touchdowns in each of the past two games and looks ready to take off after registering 197 yards from scrimmage (97 rushing, 100 receiving) against the Dolphins.
The Packers have been allowing 126.4 yards per game on the ground, including 125 by NFC rushing leader Saquon Barkley and the Giants at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The Giants managed three rushing scores in the victory, perhaps providing a blueprint for the Jets to pull off something similar against the Pack one week later, especially at one of the league’s toughest road venues, Lambeau Field.
Barkley and Daniel Jones also probably need to continue with their ground success Sunday just to keep Lamar Jackson and the Ravens’ offense off the field.
Granted, no one thought the Giants would be 4-1 at this stage of the season. But as a fairly significant figure in franchise history is often credited with saying, you are what your record says you are. Even if they fall short this week at home against Baltimore (3-2), there is no reason they can’t make it to their bye week on Nov. 6 at 5-3 or 6-2 — with upcoming road games against the Jaguars and the Seahawks, who have combined to lose six of 10 games.
Certainly, the recent history of the MetLife Stadium co-tenants — the Jets with no playoff berths since 2010, and the Giants with one appearance since winning their second Super Bowl in five years in 2011-12 — suggests that these surprising starts easily could unravel over the final 13 weeks.
But this week’s games will tell us a great deal about Wilson and Jones, about Hall and Barkley, about their respective improved defenses, about head coaches Robert Saleh and Brian Daboll, and about whether the early and promising accelerations for the two local NFL franchises are, indeed, for real.
Today’s back page
Central casting
The Yankees were washed out Thursday night, shifting Nestor Cortes’ scheduled start in Game 2 against the Guardians to a Friday matinee at the Stadium, with a 1:07 p.m. first pitch.
The expected rainout, following the silly scheduled day off following the Yankees’ 4-1 Game 1 victory on Tuesday, officially messes up plans for the remainder of the series for the Yankees, who no longer can use Cortes on three-days’ rest in a potential Game 5 on Monday night, if necessary. It also stinks for those Stadium ticketholders unable to rearrange their work or school schedules to attend Friday’s day game.
This sentence surely will blow up in my face if they go on to lose this series, but the Yankees’ Game 1 decision over Cleveland marked a continuation of their postseason dominance against AL Central teams since October of 2017. Entering Friday’s game, the Yanks have won 10 of their past 12 playoff games played against Minnesota and Cleveland since the wild-card round victory over the Twins in 2017.
Conversely, the Yanks haven’t fared nearly as well against their AL East divisional rivals, getting eliminated by the Red Sox in the 2018 ALDS and again in last year’s wild-card round and by the Rays in the 2020 ALDS. Nor have they gotten past the perennial AL West champions, the Astros, who knocked out the Bombers in the ALCS in both 2017 and 2019.
They are 9-15 overall against non-Central teams in that span, with their lone round advancement a wild-card win over the A’s in the 2018 wild-card game.
Making news for all the wrong reasons
Fans of too many sports teams have held their noses and continued to support their favorite franchises despite despicable actions or words by its players, coaches, front-office types or owners.
Daniel Snyder remains at the head of that list for fans of the Washington Commanders, and the longtime team owner landed back in the headlines Thursday, probably not coincidentally as his team prepared to face the Bears on a nationally televised (or at least, streamed on Amazon Prime!) showcase game.
With league owners slated to meet next week in New York, ESPN reported in a detailed 8,000-word story that Snyder has hired private investigators to dig up “dirt” on other league owners and top executives — including influential Dallas owner Jerry Jones and even commissioner Roger Goodell — in order to maintain control of the Washington franchise. (His lawyers have publicly refuted the report).
The 57-year-old Snyder and the organization already had been embroiled in multiple sordid controversies, including a “toxic workplace” investigation amid sexual assault allegations levied by a former team employee.
Snyder is hardly the first owner in recent years to hear calls for him to divest himself of his team. Robert Sarver agreed to sell the NBA’s Suns and the WNBA’s Mercury amid racism and misogyny allegations, eight years after Clippers owner Donald Sterling had been banned for life by the NBA and forced to sell after he was found to have made racist comments. It doesn’t seem Snyder will join them anytime soon.
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