‘Mark Sanchez’
courtesy of ‘Jeffrey Beall’

Last Sunday the Redskins won their fourth game of the season. After starting out 3-1 the Redskins then proceeded to lose their next six games to fall to 3-7 before winning last week. While the Redskins were 3-1 there was talk of a playoff run, but for that to happen now the Redskins would need to win out and have a lot of luck on their side. The week four talk of playoffs was fun at the time, but that wasn’t the expectation for the Redskins. The Redskins were expected to finish as possibly one of the worst teams in the NFL by national publications, and at or around last season’s record by local prognosticators.

The Jets on the other hand were expected to contend for the AFC East and some even predicted they would be a better team than the Patriots. At 6-5 the Jets are a disappointing team. The reason for the Jets disappointing record is the play of their quarterback Mark Sanchez. Coming into the season Sanchez was thought of as one of the better quarterbacks in the NFL, but finds himself ranked as the 19th best QB according to QB rating and has thrown the 10th most interception whil completing only 56.3% of his passes.

Because of the stumbles of Sanchez the Jets passing attack ranks 21st in the NFL by yards a game. Sanchez is not helped by an offensive line that has allowed him to be sacked 6.5% of the time he drops back. This is about middle of the pack, but that isn’t good for a team that was listed by many to be the favorite to win the Super Bowl.

The running game of the Jets has also been a disappointment averaging 100.4 yards a game and ranking 24th in the NFL. The Jets made the classic free agent mistake of bringing in a 30 year old running back and expecting mid-20’s production. There was a time when it could be argued the LaDainian Tomlinson wasn’t just the best running back in the NFL, but perhaps its best player. Averaging just 3.6 yards an attempt this season Tomlinson is no longer that player.

The Jets passing defense is what has kept them afloat. They feature the 7th ranked passing defense having allowed only 204.6 yards a game. The rushing defense is not good though and they have allowed 114.1 yards a game which ranks them 16th in the NFL. Because of the Jets deficiencies they could be a good match-up for the Redskins.

The Redskins are a team that is good at stopping the pass and weak against the run. The Redskins offense struggles to do much of anything, but in recent weeks Roy Helu has started to come into his own and should get most of the carries from now until the end of the season. The Jets struggle against the run and the Redskins struggle to pass the ball. The Redskins have faced this type of defense before and lost, but that was against teams that had a dynamic offense.

The offensive struggles of the Jets have turned what looked to be a can’t win game into a game the Redskins could win. The Redskins should be looking to keep the momentum of last week’s win rolling as they take on the Jets, and the stats say that this game is a better match-up than many would think. The Jets are the type of team the Redskins match-up well against and while they might not win the game it should be a less sloppy affair than last week’s game against the Seahawks.

David Huzzard

David Huzzard was born at Fairfax Hospital in 1981 and has spent his entire life in the Washington, D.C. area. He has been a fan of all the area sports teams either since he was born or since they arrived here. He is also very pleased that his hometown is a burger town.