On offense, Thomas Jones did have the 1,000 yard season the Jets hoped he would have.  The bad news was that he did it on 3.6 yards per carry and had only one rushing touchdown the whole season. Cotchery had 82 receptions for 1,130 yards and two touchdowns.  Coles had 55 catches for 646 yards and six touchdowns while being limited by injuries for a good part of the season.  Both were impressive given their starting quarterback situation.

The Jets have some issues going in at quarterback this season. Chad Pennington and Kellen Clemens will be the main signal callers for the Jets in 2008. When Pennington is healthy he can be one of the better quarterbacks in the league. He is extremely accurate and makes good decisions. Injuries have robbed him of a lot of games.

Clemens is the probable starter heading into camp, but by no means did he do so well in 2008 that the Jets wouldn’t contemplate going back to Pennington should Clemens prove ineffective.

The kicking game looks to be in good shape. Nugent and Graham both had solid seasons.  Neither is a major concern heading into this season.

Weaknesses: The NY Jets had weaknesses all over the board in 2007. They only won four games, and two of those were against the 1-15 Dolphins. They were run over by opposing running backs the whole season, giving up the 29th most rushing yards in the NFL. They struggled to control the line of scrimmage on either side of the ball. They finished 19th in rushing yards gained and 30th in rushing touchdowns scored.

It was a year to forget for a team coming off a wildcard birth and 10 wins in 2006. The Jets decided to fix this mess by hitting free agency as if there was no tomorrow.  They signed Alan Faneca and Damien Woody to upgrade the offensive line. They signed TE Bubba Franks and FB Tony Richardson to improve their blocking at those positions.  When those guys can stay healthy they are very effective in that regard.

They also drafted Dustin Keller to give them a receiving threat at tight end. Finally, the Jets guaranteed the final $11 million of Cole’s contract to keep him happy.

On defense they traded a third and fifth round pick for DT Kris Jenkins and signed OLB Calvin Pace away from the Arizona Cardinals. They drafted Vernon Gholston with the sixth pick. He was one of the premier pass rushers in the entire draft. They also drafted Dwight Lowery to add depth in the secondary.  Finally, they signed S Kerry Rhodes to a five year, $33.5 million extension ($20 million guaranteed) extension to keep him in the secondary.

What all this means is that the Jets were one of the busiest players in free agency and the first round of the draft. They could have as many as seven new starters or one-third of the starting positions.  That means that you really can’t look at last year’s results as many key contributors on this team are players that were not on the Jets’ roster in 2007.

Prediction: It’s hard for me to believe that the Jets aren’t going to improve on their record from 2007 given their strength of schedule and all the free agents they signed and high draft picks they made.  The question is whether that is going to be enough for them to get into the playoffs.

Playing the Dolphins and Bills twice can always help. They get the NFC West and AFC West meaning San Francisco, St. Louis, Oakland, and Kansas City. They will win more than four games in 2008. That said, I still am not in love with adding a bunch of high priced veteran free agents and throwing it together and hoping for greatness the following season. History is full of teams that crashed and burned using that approach.

It is going to take this team some time to gel and possibly reap longterm benefits. Given their schedule and improvement in talent, I am looking for them to get to 7-9 or possibly 8-8 this season.

NY Jets’ Record: 7-9 – AFC East Second place; No Playoffs

3 Buffalo Bills

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