At 4-5, New York Jets Have More to Play for Than Just Top Draft Pick

The New York Jets continue to teach the rest of the league a lesson: Any discussion regarding tanking prior to the start of a campaign is silly. 

Todd Bowles' squad improved to 4-5 on Thursday after an impressive 34-21 victory over the rival Buffalo Bills at MetLife Stadium. With four wins and seven games remaining, the Jets already played their way out of the No. 1 overall pick considering 14 teams have three or fewer wins entering Week 9. 

Still, most had their minds made up the Jets were destined to be the NFL's worst. Instead, they're only 2.5 games behind the AFC East-leading New England Patriots going into this weekend's action. 

Catching the Patriots may prove difficult, but the Jets shouldn't swoon simply because Bill Belichick's squad won eight straight division titles. Yes, the Jets' odds of overcoming the beast of the East are slim, but they're very much in the race if they continue to play well. 

A few factors fall in the Jets' favor. 

New York may not have a quarterback of the future, but it has one for the present. Believe it or not, 38-year-old signal-caller Josh McCown is playing the best football of his career. The veteran completed 14 of 20 passes for 140 yards and a touchdown against the Bills. He also ran from 10 yards out to open the scoring in the first quarter, pump-faking and freezing Bills defenders as he jogged in untouched. This performance built upon a strong four-game tilt prior to Thursday's contest. 

McCown completed 70.8 percent of his passes for 1,014 yards, nine touchdowns and four interceptions along with a rushing touchdown during the stretch. 

The 16-year veteran has started games for six different franchises. At each stop, he's been the consummate professional with the on-field ability to make all of the throws and create a little bit with his athleticism. Although, he's also been plagued with this desire to do more than he's asked or even capable of doing. As a result, McCown has always been prone to making a debilitating mistake. 

He's not making those same mistakes as a member of the Jets. He's been pretty, pretty good, per NFL Research:  

McCown is playing efficient football and getting more out of his surrounding cast than expected. 

This is an amazing development considering the perception of the roster entering the season, per NFL Network's Daniel Jeremiah: 

To be fair, the Jets roster required a facelift this offseason and multiple familiar names were released or traded. 

A quick look at last year's roster compared to this season is eye-opening. Brandon Marshall, Eric Decker, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Nick Mangold, Ryan Clady, Sheldon Richardson, David Harris, Calvin Pryor, Marcus Gilchrist and Darrelle Revis are gone. 

Considering the friction found within last year's locker room, an overhaul of this proportion became necessary with Bowles remaining as the head coach. 

"S--t, last year it was all 'me's,'" tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins said, per NJ.com's Connor Hughes. "It's easier to sell out for each other when you know they're doing the same s--t for you."

Along with McCown's signing, the Jets made a few excellent moves despite very little cap space to acquire anyone of consequence. 

Kelvin Beachum came to play left tackle after a disappointing one-year run with the Jacksonville Jaguars, and he's held down the blind side.

Also, general manager Mike Maccagnan made a deft move acquiring wide receiver Jermaine Kearse and a 2018 second-round pick from the Seattle Seahawks for Richardson, who grew to be a malcontent in New York. Kearse is tied for second on the team with 31 receptions, two behind Seferian-Jenkins. 

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A few targets have grown into bigger roles, specifically Robby Anderson. The former undrafted free agent is tied with Kearse in receptions and leads the Jets with 483 receiving yards. He's a vertical threat who can get behind defenses with ease. McCown even completed a 25-yard touchdown pass to Anderson against the Bills' best cover cornerback, rookie Tre'Davious White. 

Seferian-Jenkins is flourishing, too. After fighting personal demons and being suspended for the first two games due to a violation of the league's substance-abuse policy, the 6'5", 262-pound target is finally flourishing with 33 receptions for 221 yards and three touchdowns.

More importantly, the Jets finally realized it's OK to use the tight end like other teams around the league—as a pass-catcher and red-zone threat, not just a pass-blocking decoy.

Even the running game came to play Thursday. The offensive front dominated at the point of attack. Beachum, James Carpenter, Wesley Johnson, Brian Winters and Brent Qvale form this no-name group, and they led the way for 194 yards on 41 carries. 

The ageless Matt Forte averaged 5.5 yards per carry with a pair of touchdown totes. 

But the strength of this Jets team lies along its defensive front. Like it's offensive counterpart, the Jets defensive line dominated and simply destroyed the Bills' blocking schemes. New York registered an impressive seven sacks and consistently collapsed the pocket even when Tyrod Taylor worked himself free. 

Muhammad Wilkerson and Leonard Williams form one of the league's best defensive end duos. Both can take over contests. The two combined for 1.5 sacks, a tackle for loss and four more quarterback hits.

But, wait, there's more.  

Demario Davis' return also brought a completely different player. Davis came back to the Big Apple following a one-year stint in Cleveland after the Jets finally gave up on 2014 first-round pick Calvin Pryor. Pryor was released by the Browns during the preseason, while Davis ranks among the league's top five tacklers. The middle linebacker tied for the team lead Thursday with eight total tackles.  

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New York's back line is loaded after the organization used its first- and second-round selections on safeties Jamal Adams and Marcus Maye. Adams is a tone-setter both in practice and during games with his attitude and physicality, while Maye is constantly around the ball. 

An extremely talented defensive front paired with a pair of playmaking safeties are great building blocks for a franchise supposedly going through a massive rebuild. 

The Jets are doing all of this on the fly, and they're still competitive with multiple winnable games left on the schedule. 

"We are focused on building this team for the future, and that's kind of our goal all along," Maccagnan said in June, per the Oregonian's Geoffrey C. Arnold. "It's going to be a roster of opportunities and a very competitive roster at a lot of positions, in terms of players with the opportunity presented to them and we'll see how it unfolds."

Well, it's going as well as anyone could have expected. 

What makes the concept of tanking preposterous anyhow is the inconsistency found in talent evaluation. The NFL isn't the NBA. Most top prospects aren't the same young men identified at 16 years of age and all the way through their short stops at a collegiate town of their choosing. 

Projecting players, even "elite" prospects, to the NFL is extremely difficult. 

Maybe some thought tanking for the No. 1 overall pick next April was worth consideration. After all, the quarterback class was supposed to be loaded, and the Jets desperately need a future face of the franchise. 

Yet USC's Sam Darnold, UCLA's Josh Rosen and Wyoming's Josh Allen have disappointed, and their statuses remain up in the air. Penn State running back Saquon Barkley is the nation's best football player, yet he doesn't play a premium position. 

The NFL draft is a crapshoot and nothing can be guaranteed by intentionally throwing a season away in some backward attempt to build toward the future. 

The Jets' approach is simple: Thanks, but no tanks. Winning games is far more fun than wondering about next year's draft status. 

Brent Sobleski covers the NFL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @brentsobleski.