Anyone subscribe to the New York Times?

[\GoBillsInDallas/]

Anyone have the text for this article on yesterday's game?

 

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/09/25/sport...l/25araton.html

[dave mcbride]

Anyone have the text for this article on yesterday's game?

 

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/09/25/sport...l/25araton.html

785418[/snapback]

it's a pretty dreadful piece, actually:

 

Can a victory be a statement game when it doesn’t end in an exclamation point?

 

This early in the season, momentum debates tend to go whichever way the wind blows, but here yesterday at blustery Ralph Wilson Stadium, the outcome left little doubt that the Jets are not as bad as many people thought they could be and may even be — dare we say — a playoff contender?

 

Upon further review, with such a long way to go and with Indianapolis coming to Giants Stadium next Sunday, let us pause before throwing caution, or hot air, to the tornado.

 

Here is what we do know about Coach Eric Mangini’s Jets after they held on to defeat the Bills by 28-20 despite fumbling a late, desperate onside kick and giving Buffalo one last chance to tie: In addition to fresh new leadership, they are in pretty good hands under center again because the healthy Chad Pennington, who we admit is no Peyton Manning, is also no J. P. Losman. Or for that matter, no Kerry Collins (see Week 1 victory in Tennessee).

 

It helps, sometimes, to get out and see the world to better appreciate what you have at home.

 

“I think slowly we’re starting to build an identity,” Pennington said after the Jets sandwiched their second road victory around last week’s home-field defeat to New England. “Each week, we find out a little more about ourselves.”

 

This week’s primary growth lesson was that a Jets offensive line that includes two rookies could protect Pennington against a Buffalo pass rush that supposedly was as unstoppable as Niagara Falls. And one more thing: statistics are occasionally for suckers.

 

The Bills outgained the Jets in total net yards by 475-256, but the Jets were opportunistic on defense and Pennington was consistently efficient, handling the tricky air currents a lot better than Losman, and managing them much less recklessly than the Buffalo coach, Dick Jauron.

 

Maybe Jauron considered himself an expert from his days coaching the Bears in Chicago, the Windy City. Maybe he believed the Bills were primed to huff and puff and blow the Jets out after Mangini chose to kick off into the wind and Losman needed two pass plays and 55 seconds to cover 69 yards for a 7-0 lead.

 

The Bills, we had heard, were going to grind the Jets into the artificial turf with ball control, with Willis McGahee running hard on his surgically and magically repaired left knee. Then Jauron got a little too cute, a bit too greedy. He didn’t use his Jets-killer (McGahee had run for over 100 yards against Gang Green three straight games and would ultimately rumble for a career-best 150 yesterday) as the Bills dominated first-half field position. He allowed Losman, a third-year quarterback from Tulane, a little too much rope to hang himself.

 

Four successive possessions that took the Bills to the Jets’ 35, 19, 28 and 18-yard line resulted in the grand total of 3 points and spared Mangini the first major second-guess of his three-game head-coaching career.

 

Instead, he got to bask in his own Man-genuity when Pennington, with the wind in the second quarter, took the Jets 67 yards for a 1-yard touchdown pass to tight end Chris Baker 14 seconds before halftime. That gave the Jets a lead, 14-10, they never relinquished.

 

“We weathered the opening storm,” Pennington said, calling the wind “crazy” and Mangini crazy like a fox. “Whatever he decides as a coach, we believe in.”

 

When Losman was blind-sided on an early third-quarter safety blitz by Kerry Rhodes, resulting in a fumble and a 32-yard touchdown run by Victor Hobson, the Jets had a 21-10 lead. From there, they might have coasted, but Losman (the J. P. apparently doesn’t stand for Just Punt) had his moments, the Jets’ Matt Chatham coughed up the onside kick and the Jets reminded everyone, including Pennington, that they are a work in progress.

 

“We’ve got a long way to go; we’re not we’re we want to be,” Pennington said. “But as long as we can manufacture victories while we’re getting there, we’ll be O.K.”

 

Getting where? Hopefully not carried away with the quality of their vanquished opponents. Rhodes, for instance, compared Losman yesterday to Jim Kelly, the quarterback here when the Bills were of Super Bowl vintage. He will no doubt understand what true brilliance is Sunday when Manning and the Colts hit the Meadowlands.

 

After that, the Jets have a tough date in Jacksonville, which is what made yesterday’s victory so significant, deleting any chance of a 1-4 start.

 

Should they somehow steal one of the next two, here is what the rest of October will bring: home games against Miami and Detroit and a trip to Cleveland, all winnable. Later on, they will play Houston, at Green Bay, Miami and Buffalo again, finishing the regular season against Al Davis’s deadbeat Raiders.

 

That is the Jets’ reward for being so bad last year.

 

In the most optimistic of outcomes, can we begin to imagine them winning 10 games, making a wild-card run?

 

Asked yesterday if he had that kind of fix on his team, Mangini called every game “an opportunity to learn and teach and grow.”

 

He’s a football coach, a Bill Belichick disciple, so his lips are not too loose. Better to let the score make the statement, with so much season left and Manning in the forecast for next week.