By Jay Greenberg
No question, the Jets, who have gotten to 6-3 over a lot of nobodies, play somebody tomorrow night. Even Eric Mangini and Bill Belichick will shake on that.
Mangini has one win in five tries (counting a playoff game) against Belichick, the Jets are coming off 4-10 and didn’t load up with Kris Jenkins, Brett Favre and Alan Faneca just to try to get to 9-7. So certainly , it’s a statement game, but as annoyingly unrevealing as Mangini insists on being when he drones on every week about the game in front of his team being The Game until the next one, he is right.
The Jets will play New England tough, but if they don’t win, their season hardly disappears. They would drop only one game back of the Pats, who have to go Miami next week, then play Pittsburgh, with games remaining againt first-place Arizona and at Buffalo. With all their injuries, the Patriots are not running any tables. And with a win at Tennesse next week, the Jets are flying just as high as they would with a win at Foxboro.
They still have Seattle, San Francisco, and defensively-deficient Denver coming, and have already won at Miami and Buffalo, both palces the Patriots sitll have to go. What the Jets really need is one win in the next two. The seven remaining games and potentially another crack at the Pats in January will define their season, not tomorrow night in Foxboro.