Jets 37, Seahawks 17

Ah, good ol' reliable Seattle. Nothing like a good choke job by the Seahawks to make you feel better about your team. But seriously, folks, the Jets played very well, improving to 10-4 on the season, and moving to within a win of a playoff spot. (For you non-Jets fans out there, just realize that 10 wins in a season is still a pretty novel thing to us Jets fans...we're used to double digits in the losses column.)

Chad Pennington came back from last week's disaster in Pittsburgh with an awesome game. 253 yards, 3 TD, 0 INT. Classic Chad. His throws looked as good this week as they looked bad last week. So maybe his arm isn't in as bad shape as I thought. I'll get a look in person next week against New England.

Curtis Martin rushed for 134 yards and 2 touchdowns (LaMont Jordan added 84 yards on the ground) as the Jets racked up 482 yards of offense. Very nice. The only negative spot on offense came in the third quarter when Anthony Becht dropped a touchdown pass on the goal line. He got booed off the field for the second consecutive home game. The Jets' tight ends were being talked up all week as needing to become a bigger part of the offense, and Becht had just two passes thrown his way (including the dropped TD), and Chris Baker had one catch. Maybe they'll throw Becht's way a lot more in the coming games...or they're saving it for the post-season. Either way, it doesn't look like Anthony Becht will be back in a Jets uniform next year. The good news, though, is that uncharacteristically, after Becht dropped the TD pass, the Jets went right back to the air from the 7-yard line and Pennington threw a touchdown to Santana Moss. Usually the Jets would run it into the ground and settle for a field goal in a situation like that.

On the ensuing drive, the Seahawks drove down to the Jets' 1-yard line, and the defense held, forced fourth down, and then Shawn Alexander fumbled the ball into the end zone. The defense has been playing so well...and another second half shutout - that's starting to mean something to me now. Terrell Buckley got burned again for a touchdown (so did Donnie Abraham), but if the defense keeps playing like this, who knows what could happen.

Doug Brien had a couple of hiccups, missing an extra point and a field goal, but he tends to do that once or twice a year. So I think it's out of his system.

The officiating was once again horrid. Seattle had a few gripes in that game, nothing that changed the course of the game, really, but the Jets caught a couple of breaks. I think...I'm not really positive. I have a bad feeling that someone's season this year is going to hinge on a bad call by the referees....I hate when that happens. It better not be the Jets. I just feel that no matter what, the refs tend to favor the home team, and it gets aggravating...especially when the Jets' path to the championship takes them on the road.

Moving on to some other news from Sunday - the Broncos collapse has been unreal. They got whipped by the Chiefs on Sunday, and with the Jaguars and Bills winning, (and pending the outcome of Sunday night's Baltimore game), the Broncos have put themselves almost out of the playoffs. Speaking of the Bills winning, that Jets' loss to the Bills isn't looking so horrible anymore. (Although I'm still a little upset by it.) But the Bills, after starting off 0-4 (remember, I called them the best 0-4 team in football...you can look it up), are now 8-6. And I called them the best 0-4 team in football because they lost some really, really close games back in September. They could easily be 9-5, 10-4...even 11-3 right now. I think. The Jaguars snuck by them, the Jets beat them by two...Bledsoe was driving the Bills to tie against the Patriots late in the game....anyway, the fact remains the Bills are 8-6...but they're making a playoff push.

A couple of e-mails from Dave (not in Brighton this week):

"Dear JohnnyJets,
I know you eschew the Sunday morning pregame shows, so I wanted to let
you know that Chad Pennington was the guest on Fox's "Ten Yards with
TB" segment.
As a dutiful JJDBSDC agent, I took notes so you could have blog fodder in case Al takes the week off.
If you're not familiar with the segment, Terry Bradshaw gives you 2 choices, and you pick one of them. Chad's picks in CAPS.
call your own plays/COACH CALLS THE PLAYS
big arm/OK ARM
zero int's/FOUR TD'S
rhodes scholarship/HEISMAN TROPHY
rock and roll/COUNTRY WESTERN
boxers/briefs
Chad said BOXER-BRIEFS.
METS/yankees
Chad offered that he likes the Islanders, too.
namath/MONTANA
Before making his choice Chad said "Joe, I love you," which is almost as funny as "Joe, I wanna kiss you."
LARRY THE CABLE GUY/jeff foxworthy
Mets? He must be nuts. Maybe they taped it before the Pedro business.
Dave in Brighton"

Dave, thank you. But to be honest, I saw an ad for the pregame show Saturday while watching Redskins/49ers, so I knew about Pennington and Bradshaw. So I tuned in to see that. He was very entertaining...as usual. Pennington is a good interview, as is Tom Brady. Thanks for the transcript, though...and you don't know how happy I was to hear Pennington roots for the Mets. Perhaps there's a shot I'll fire up johnnymets.blogspot.com again.

Dave checked in again later in the day:

"Dear Johnnyjets,

Granted I didn't see the game because I'm out of market, but what's up
with the Jets running up the score on poor helpless Seattle? 37-14?
How offensive.

Dave in Brighton"

An interesting thing about the Jets offensive output, Dave. After the Jets lost 20-13 to the Bears in 2002, jeopardizing their playoff hopes, they reeled off games of 30, 42, and 41 points against New England, Green Bay, and Indianapolis as they won the AFC East, then their divisional playoff game. The Daily News made the comparison today, with the Jets coming off the loss to Pittsburgh, that maybe the Jets would start another offensive streak like that....so far, the Daily News is right. 37 points. Granted, it was the Seattle Seahawks defense, but it was a good game plan. I'll take it. Let's do the same thing to New England next week.

That's all I have for today...this will be a big week for the blog. Thanks for reading, and we'll do e-mails tomorrow (and the rest of the week, if there's enough e-mail).