Win. Loss.
Win. Loss.
Win. Loss.
Monday night's thrilling win in Atlanta gave the Jets their third opportunity this season to piece together a two-game winning streak, but as has been the pattern, they followed up a come-from-behind win with a disappointing loss.
"It starts with the turnovers," head coach Rex Ryan said of the inconsistent play. "If you're turning the ball over and not getting the takeaways on defense, that's a recipe for not being consistent or successful."
Rex's hypothesis seems to check out.
In our three wins, we have three takeaways and four giveaways (minus-1 differential). In our three losses: zero takeaways, 10 giveaways (minus-10).
While our defense needs to improve on averaging just one takeaway every other game, the up-and-down nature of our offense has also contributed to our win-one-lose-one pattern.
Although the quarterback typically gets too much credit in the wins and too much blame in the losses, the statistics support the notion that as Geno Smith goes, so goes our team. He's racked up seven touchdowns (six passing, one rushing) in our wins, but has scored just once in our losses.
WR Stephen Hill acknowledges that the team's been inconsistent throughout the year, but it's something that comes with having a young team.
"We just have to make sure we're all together, it's not mostly an individual thing, just make sure we're all together," Hill said. "But we're doing a great job with that, so we haven't fallen off on that part."
TE Konrad Reuland echoed Hill's comments, saying that the frustrating, yet promising, part of following up a win with a loss is knowing that there's plenty of talent in the locker room.
"I don't think there's many teams that can beat us if we don't hurt ourselves," Reuland said.
"For us, that would've been a huge win, kind of turn the program around, 4-2 heading into next week's showdown," he said, "but I mean, they were 0-4. They were clawing. They were backed up against the wall. Any time you get a team like that, you know you've got to bring your 'A' game because they're going to bring theirs, and that's exactly what they did, and we didn't bring ours."
So with 10 games remaining on the season, what's the solution to climbing back out of this valley and staying atop the peak for a little while to enjoy the view?
"It starts with being consistent in practice," Smith said. "That's what we're trying to preach here is to always come out with the right mindset, being enthused for practice, and it carries over to games. It takes a tremendous amount of discipline. It takes a tremendous amount of focus and effort. That's all there is to it."
The rookie QB's looking forward to matching up again with the New England Patriots next week in an effort to once again turn our misery into ecstasy.
"I think it's one that we really need," Smith said. "Especially with our record right now, we need to start putting together a few wins to set ourselves up for the future."
So while we'd like to break free from the pattern that'll destine us toward being a .500 football team, we might want to hold off just one more week.
Win. Loss.
Win. Loss.
Win. Loss.
Win? If the six-week history of this season means anything, the Jets could take off again come Sunday.
