Getty New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh walking off of the football field during an NFL game.
Don’t look now but the New York Jets are 4-2, winners of three in a row, after blowing out (yes you read that right) the Green Bay Packers in Lambeau to the tune of 27-10.
There are a lot of rose petals to be thrown around after this resounding win in front of a national audience. However, some viral comments after the game sent an entirely different message to the rest of the league.
Robert Saleh Sends a New Message to Future Opponents of the Jets
After the upset win, head coach Robert Saleh downplayed what this means for the future because they expect to be in this position.
Although Saleh was quite candid at the podium when he shared his halftime speech to his team:
“Just keep giving them [the Packers] body blow after body blow and keep hitting them in the mouth. We felt like if we can just keep taking them down to deeper water they’ll find out they can’t swim. It was just a mindset.”
It is a frightening message reiterating this football team’s identity: physicality.
When future opponents of the Jets turn on the tape, they will see that intense level of play throughout the 60 minutes of action.
The Jets were able to dominate the line of scrimmage and that clearly bothered Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers throughout the contest.
On the offensive side of the ball, the Jets leaned into their offensive line and it resulted in chunk plays.
Gang Green toted the rock 33 times and amassed 179 rushing yards on the ground. That calculates to a healthy 5.4 yards per clip with multiple players getting involved in the fun:
- Breece Hall: 116 yards (touchdown)
- Michael Carter: 41 yards
- Braxton Berrios: 20 yards (touchdown)
Jets Playoff Contenders?!
This 4-2 start to the season is beyond even the wildest dreams of Jets fans from the offseason.
Gang Green survived the tough AFC North start to the season at 2-2 and pulled off a pair of impressive blowout upset wins over the Miami Dolphins and Packers.
Gang Green now has three more games before their bye week in Week 10:
- Week 7: at Denver Broncos
- Week 8: vs New England Patriots
- Week 9: vs Buffalo Bills
According to the ESPN FPI (football power index) analytics, the Jets are currently considered underdogs in two out of the three upcoming contests.
Broncos (53.8 percent favorite), Patriots (45.7 percent underdog), and the Bills (81.5 percent favorite).
So if that plays out the way the analytics thinks it will, the Jets would be at 5-4 heading into the second half of their season.
When you squint at that schedule all of a sudden you can start to see the light at the end of the playoff drought tunnel. Which by the way is 11 years and running for those counting at home (leads the NFL).
The Jets won’t look ahead, taking a game-by-game approach, but that doesn’t mean the fans can’t. People finally started to take the team seriously after this big-time win against the Packers.
The Jets are for real and now the rest of the NFL finally realizes that in the middle of October.