The Jets head out to Arizona for a game against the Cardinal seeking their second straight win.

Will this be the next step on the long road to a comeback or a step back?

Let's break it down today on Locked On Jets.

You are Locked on Jets, your daily New York Jets podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day.

Welcome, this is the Locked-on Jets podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.

It's Friday, November 8th, 2024, and I'm your host, John B from gangreneation.com. Thank you so much for making the show your first listener, first watch every day. Big shout out to you every day, or this is a daily podcast covering the New York Jets with two episodes each day through the week, Monday through Friday. Our episode today is brought to by LinkedIn. LinkedIn jobs helps you find the qualified candidates you want to talk to faster.

Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com slash locked on NFL terms and conditions apply. Well, today we're going to break down the Jets' week 10 matchup against the Arizona Cardinals kickoff time scheduled for 425 Eastern on Sunday. The game will be shown on CBS. We'll talk about some of the challenges Arizona may present the jetsets. We'll talk about some of the areas where the Jets have an edge on Arizona, at least on paper in this matchup. But we're going to begin by talking about the stakes of this game. And when you're the New York Jets, at this point, every game is critical. This is a three and six football team. This is a team that two games out of the last playoff spot in the

AFC. But after last week, there's at least some reason for hope because the Jets put together

an excellent second half against the Houston Texans. They at least showed that they're capable

of playing good football, which is something that has eluded this team through much of the season.

Now, in the early part of 2024, I was guesstimating

10 and 7 would probably be what it would take to get you into the AFC playoffs, because

in any given year, 10 wins is probably going to get you into the tournament. But of course,

there are years where maybe you don't need quite as much. And that seems like one of those

years, this seems like one of those years in the AFC. One of the things about the NFL adding the seventh team in the playoffs in each conference a few years back, there are a lot of years where a conference just doesn't have seven good teams. And the AFC in 2024, that's a conference that doesn't have seven good teams. So if the Jets get on a run here, you know, they might be able to turn it

around. And I don't think it's going to take 10 and 7 anymore. I think if you're looking at the layout of this conference, 9 and 8 probably get you in safely. The challenge for the Jets is that they're 3 and 6. So what's it going to take to get 9 and 8? Well, it's going to take six wins in their last eight games. And that makes not just this game critical, but every game critical.

Because if the gets win this game, then you're talking five and two over your last seven. Look, it's still going to be a long road. And I don't want to give anybody with an illusion that this is going to be easy for this football team. I don't want to give anybody with an illusion. I don't want to give anybody an illusion that this is even likely because if you look at most of the analytics websites that cover these things,

they give the Jets between about a one in five and one and six shots of making the playoffs.

And those scenarios where the Jets make the playoffs require them to go on a big rock.

And I would argue that those analytic sites are actually probably overestimating the Jets' odds of making the playoffs because I think a lot of them have baked in information about Aaron Rogers' past performance. I think a lot of them have the idea that Aaron Rogers is somewhat likely to go on a big run. And I'm not sure that that's necessarily true right now. I think the player Aaron Rogers is right now is not the player of the past. So all of this is to say that this is going to be a tough road for the New York Jets. I think it's going to be easier to go five and two over the last seven than to go six in one. Every loss further decreases your margin of error. And that's why some of these early season losses have been so devastating to this football

team.

That's why the loss in the game against Denver was devastating, especially because the Broncos right now hold the seven seat, the seven seed in the AFC. And now the Jets lose a tiebreaker to them. So it's not just that the Jets are down two games. Jets are down two games and lose the tiebreaker to the team currently holding that spot. It's why it's devastating.

...