Week 13: NY Jets at Miami

Twenty-nine years and 14 days ago this Sunday, the Jets played the Raiders on NBC in a game that went on to become famous not for Oakland’s amazing comeback – the Raiders scored two touchdowns in a stretch of just nine seconds to pull out a win – but because NBC pre-empted the end of the game to air a made-for-TV version of Heidi. This would never happen today, of course – CBS airs AFC games now, and is contractually required to let Shannon Sharpe and the robot that replaced Boomer Esiason engage in forced bonhomie for at least 15 minutes after every game – but it’s somewhat instructive this week. Especially this week, actually.

That’s because this week’s Jets/Dolphins game is, disturbingly, guaranteed to run without pre-emption on millions of TV sets. This is a game that would probably be much improved if played in the dark and should be broadcast – if at all – on some hidden channel in the 700s, amid the HD versions of The Golf Network and that one channel that only shows surgeries, or tucked in with the digital music channels that play specific types of ‘80s music. Instead, it will be televised on CBS, right in the middle of the day, when children might be traumatized by it. A TV movie of Heidi would be an improvement not just from an entertainment perspective – it’s the touching tale of a Swiss orphan, remember, not a True Hollywood Story-style pseudo-doc on the second-dumbest character from MTV’s The Hills – but possibly from a football perspective as well.

And yet…there’s some significance to this game. The Dolphins narrowly lost an unrealistically mucky slog on Week 12’s Monday Night against the Steelers, and enter this game at 0-11. While it’s hard to find bright spots in that – and harder still to be optimistic about a team that is now down to its fourth-string running back after losing backups Jesse Chatman and the freshly reinstated Ricky Williams to injury in Week 12 – the Dolphins have played better of late. Their defense – though still terrible against the run – has emerged as the NFL’s third-best unit against the pass and has yielded just 12 points per game over the team’s last four games. Miami’s 31-28 loss to the Jets in Week 3 was also the closest the team has come to winning this season.

The Dolphins’ offense, though, remains a mess. It’s unsurprising that Coach Cam Cameron’s inventive, complicated offensive schemes looked better in the hands of LaDainian Tomlinson and Philip Rivers last season than they will when entrusted to Samkon Gado and John Beck this week. It is still surprising, though, just how bad the Dolphins offense has been, and how poorly Cameron has adapted to his head coaching duties. The Dolphins are both one of the worst teams in the NFL in terms of offensive talent, and one of its worst coached. The Jets, by contrast, look pretty good.

Which is saying something, because the Jets are awful. They’re significantly more competitive than the Dolphins, of course, and have a gritty Week 11 win over the Steelers to feel good about. Overall, though, the Jets have been hobbled by weak tackling on defense (they’re one of just two teams currently giving up more rushing yards per game than Miami) and an offense that has yet to get going. New QB Kellen Clemens has played fairly well since taking over as the starter, for the most part, and RB Thomas Jones should find the end zone for the first time in 2007 against Miami. But while there’s not much to point to in terms of high points for the Jets – we mentioned that inexplicable Steelers upset, right? Because that’s all we’ve got – but for all their manifest and obvious weaknesses, they have a marked talent advantage over the Dolphins at nearly every skill position, and a decent running back who’s due for a big game.

Most of the sports-TV shouting heads we’ve seen have picked this game as the one the Dolphins must win if they’re to avoid an 0-16 season. We guess that’s right, and the Dolphins will surely play hard; they always, at least, do that. But we’ll still pick the team that hasn’t lost every game and isn’t playing backups and green rookies at its most important skill positions. And we’ll keep our fingers crossed for a pre-emption of some sort. If anyone ever needed to have their hearts warmed by Heidi’s indomitable spirit, it’s Miami’s suffering football fans.

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