Week 12: NY Jets at Dallas

The Jets ruined a friend’s party last weekend. Our friend the Steelers fan had a bunch of friends over for chili and an opportunity to watch her hometown Steelers put the stomp on the hapless Jets. There were other Pittsburgh people there: nice people, people who have opinions on art and literature and stuff and yet refer to Bill Cowher as “The Chin” with undisguised admiration. And, as you might have heard, they did not get to see their Steelers win.

A Jets defense that we accused in print – and in all earnestness – of not being able to hold the Canadian songstress Feist under 120 yards on 25 carries stepped up to stuff the significantly more intimidating Willie Parker; the NFL’s second-leading rusher was held to 52 yards on 21 carries. Yeah, the Jets offense was pretty weak – although RB Thomas Jones showed signs of life with 117 yards on 30 carries – but it was just un-weak enough to help the team earn what is, thus far, the season’s unlikeliest win. And they ruined the chili party, naturally. All those nice people in their Duce Staley and Quinn Early jerseys staring forlornly into their chili bowls. It’s sad.

That they also ruined what would’ve been a perfect week of predictions for us is barely worth mentioning, and yet there it is. More worthy of note is the fact that the Jets showed signs of life – primarily on the defense, where the team’s seven sacks were two fewer than they’d tallied over the previous nine games – for the first time in weeks. New QB Kellen Clemens wasn’t perfect – he completed 14 of 31 passes and got away with a few very bad decisions – but he was sturdy enough, and the team played far tougher than anyone had a right to expect. Now, their reward: three days in the training room and a Thanksgiving date with a very tough Cowboys team. No matter what happens at your Thanksgiving – and we’re reminded, here, of another friend whose family had a turkey simply collapse into nothing a few years ago during the roasting process – it will be better than the one the Jets experience.

That’s because, no matter how livelied-up their previously underachieving linebackers and D-line may be, they will not be able to get past the Cowboys hulking O-line. Dallas has yielded just 13 sacks so far this season – only three NFL teams have yielded fewer – and only the Patriots average more than the Cowboys’s 393 total yards per game. The O-line’s ability to keep opposing defenses away from QB Tony Romo has allowed the extravagantly aw-shucks Romo to look like one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks despite a skill set that lags significantly behind some of the bigger names. That, in turn, has helped him turn TE Jason Witten and WR Terrell Owens (who scored four times in Week 11) back into capital-letter Stars. After a few rough weeks – starting with a sloppy near-loss to the Bills on Sunday Night in Week 5 – the Cowboys are chewing up weaker defenses and looking like a potential Super Bowl team. And somehow doing it without really annoying us. We think it’s because Wade Phillips seems like a pleasant guy, especially relative to the heroically unpleasant peptic-ulcer-in-polo-shirt he replaced, Bill Parcells.

The Jets, for their part, have that nice upset and a new quarterback named Kellen. Which is nice, but may wind up being nicer for the Cowboys secondary than it is for Jets fans. Phillips has built a Cowboys’ defense that mirrors his lights-out Chargers’ unit from last season. By turning loose ace pass-rusher DeMarcus Ware – currently tied for the NFC lead in sacks with nine; his matchup with Jets T D’Brickashaw Ferguson should be worth at least some between-courses viewing – Phillips has given his already very-good secondary ample opportunities to chase down half-terrified mistake passes. The Cowboys rank second in the NFL in picks with 15, and should add to that total as Clemens flees Dallas’s pass rush and tosses the ball in the general direction of Jerricho Cotchery (erstwhile Jets number one WR Laveranues Coles is doubtful for this game) while wondering why he didn’t go to law school or something. It’s not exactly a turkey collapsing into a pile of viscous ash in a roasting pan, but we think that Week 10 win is going to feel awfully far away for the Jets this Thanksgiving.

Cowboys by 12