New York Jets First Half Report Card

So now that the first half of the season has come and gone for the New York Jets, we feel now is the right time to look back at the first eight games of the season and give a report card on how the Jets have done to this point in the year. The Jets currently sit at 3-5, putting them in 3rd place in the AFC East ahead of the Buffalo Bills but trailing the Miami Dolphins and New England Patriots. Everything started off good with a 48-28 victory in week one over the Buffalo Bills. That was followed up with a 27-10 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers in week two. Week Three saw the team go back over 500 with a 23-20 overtime win over the Miami Dolphins. They followed that up with a disaster in week four with a 34-0 shutout loss to the San Fransisco 49ers at home. Week five saw the same result, a loss, this time on Monday Night Football to the Houston Texans by the score of 23-17. Week six was an improvement with a 35-9 win over the Indianapolis Colts. That was followed up with a tough 2926 overtime loss to the New England Patriots in week seven. Finally in week eight it was a pounding loss to the Miami Dolphins 30-9. As of now the Jets sit at 3-5 overall and 2-2 in the AFC East.

So there is a quick recap of what went down first half of the year. Here are some raw stats to throw out there on the first half of the year. The Jets are 27th in the NFL in total offense, 25th in the league in passing, and 14th in the league in rushing. As for the Defense, the Jets rank 16th in the league in total defense, 6th in the league in passing defense, and 29th in rushing defense. Mark Sanchez leads in passing yards with 1,736 on 144 completions. Sanchez has a 52.9% completion percentage. As for Tim Tebow, he is two of three for 32 yards. Shonn Greene leads the rushing game with 509 yards on 139 carries, followed by Bilal Powell at 139 yards on 34 carries. Finally with the receiving game, Jeremy Kerley leads the team with 30 catches and 478 yards, followed by the injured Santonio Holmes who before he got hurt had 20 catches for 278 yards.

Now at long last here are the grades I have for the Jets so far this season.

Offense: C
-Mark Sanchez has been underperforming at times this year, but really its a double sided coin here with Sanchez. Granted he doesn't have the greatest receivers to work with and his offensive line isn't as good as it once had been. So Sanchez hasn't gotten as much time as you would like your quarterback to get. But yet there is a flip side to the argument. Mark Sanchez has not been able to adjust his game to the changes around him. A good quarterback to me should be able to adjust and make better decisions with the ball then he has this year. And Sanchez has struggled in adjusting this year and its hurting the Jets offense. As far as Tim Tebow is concerned, he has been doing what has been asked of him this year. I know people are calling for him to be the started but I still say lets not totally jump the gun here yet. I wanna see how Sanchez responds after the bye week. If he is still having problems then I would throw in Tim Tebow as my starting quarterbacj. But not just yet. Overall quarterbacks have been below par this year to this point. I give the Quarterbacks a C.

-As for the running game, its not as great as past years but still hanging around in the middle of the pack. I'd give the rushing game a B-. Shonne Greene has done an ok job of running the football, but is taking on more of a workload then he has in the past few seasons and it took him a while to adjust to the job of starting running back. He seemed to have settled into the job now but only time will tell really.

-Finally the receiving game I would give a C-. In the past few seasons Jets fans have enjoyed success in the rushing and receiving games from Gang Green. the numbers for receivers the last few season had been good. This year however the team is going with a bunch of rookies and its starting to show some form of weakness.

Defense: B-
-The Jets defense is still its strongest point. The rushing defense is horrible, which is a shock because Rex Ryan led defenses are usually among the best rushing defenses in the league. The passing defense has been outstanding, sitting in the top ten in the league. Sadly the rushing defense is bringing the defense as a whole down. Also the loss of Derelle Revis for the year with the knee injury isn't helping the cause much.

Special Teams: B
-Special teams for the Jets has been pretty solid this year. Nick Folk has been great kicking the ball this year, and the Jets return game is about average with the rest of the league.

Coaching: F
-I'm almost sorry to have to be saying this but coaching for the Jets this year has been well below standard. Rex isn't having as much of an affect on his players as I have seen in the past few years and its really hurting the team. Sorry but from what I can see the coaching staff isn't up so snuff this year.

So there you go. The grades for the Jets through the first half of the year. We will end this discussion with a look ahead for Gang Green the rest of the way.

November 11 4:05 p.m. EST at Seattle Seahawks
November 18 1:00 p.m. EST at St. Louis Rams
November 22 8:20 p.m. EST New England Patriots
December 2 1:00 p.m. EST Arizona Cardinals
December 9 1:00 p.m. EST at Jacksonville Jaguars
December 17 8:30 p.m. EST at Tennessee Titans
December 23 8:20 p.m. EST San Diego Chargers
December 30 1:00 p.m. EST at Buffalo Bills

Lets go Jets!