Jets Playoff Chances

A few notes off the Jets game:

1) The NFC North stinks. While the league is full of inconsistency, the NFC North is horrid. I think the NFC North is the reason why so many teams in the AFC East have good records. The Vikings, who have a "great run defense" have no defense against the pass. Ditto for the Green Bay Packers. By the way, can you really have a "great run defense" when your pass defense is horrible? During the Jets and Vikings game, a graphic was flashed up showing how the Vikings run attack compared with Super Bowl defenses like the 85 Bears and 00 Ravens. That's all well and good, but when teams abandon the run in order to just pass against you, it seems misleading.

2) The entire NFC stinks. If the Super Bowl champion does not come from the AFC, it would be a huge surprise. How are the Giants, who have been horrible lately still in the playoff picture, while the Jets, with a better record, need to be perfect the rest of the way.

3) I don't think the Jets will make the playoffs but it's still close. They're tied right now with Denver and Jacksonville, but lose both tiebreakers to those teams. Cincinnati is 8-5, although they need to play the Colts tonight. The Jets need to win both of their games to finish 10-6, not an easy task playing at Miami on Christmas. But even that wouldn't guarantee a playoff spot. They'll need help from New England against Jacksonville next week, since the Jags own the head-to-head tiebreaker. The Bengals and Denver play each other next week, which means if the Colts beat the Bengals tonight, then one of Denver and the Bengals would be assured to go 9-7. I'm not expecting much but it could be a lot of fun going into the stretch. Maybe Miami, now with 8 losses will feel like they have nothing to play for on Christmas night and not be as good as they've been the last month or so. Here's hoping that's the case.