Brett Favre's mini soap opera this preseason is well known. After Green Bay decided the time had come to move on, they finally traded him outside the conference to the NY Jets. The Jets had tried both Chad Pennington and Kellen Clemens at QB last year, Pennington was the better of the two but threw nine interceptions to go with ten TDs. Their chief receiving threat is Jericho Cotchery who caught for over a thousand yards last year. Laveranues Cole is the other threat at WR, he reportedly has a thigh injury that may hamper him; he also does not seem to be Favre's favorite target. Their offense last year was near the bottom in both receiving and running ranking 25th and 26th in yards gained respectively. That was coupled with a turnover rate of -4 on the year and they ended up scoring a paltry 268 points, about 17 per game.
In the offseason the Jets buttressed their offensive line with Damien Woody and Alan Faneca, breaking open their piggy bank the five year contracts totaled some 65 million, 32 gauranteed. Faneca from the Steelers was the real prize. The running game seemed improved against Miami, but the augmented line still gave up three sacks. The running game revolves around T. Jones formerly of the Bears who managed a 4.6 average carry against Miami, last year he was getting 3.6 often getting caught in the backfield, but still ran for over 1,000 yards.
With Cooper still out we can expect the Jets to test the Charger ILBs with their running game. At tight end the Jets used a first round pick to take Dustin Keller, who they hope will follow the mold of Kellen Winslow (jr) or Dallas Clark, in terms of becoming a receiving threat, but caught mostly just caught flack from his coach in the opener against Miami. The coach had harsh commentary about Keller needing more consistency after the game, he did make a catch last week against the Patriots.
This is a team reminiscent of the Panthers in that this year they have a new improved QB, a bolstered offensive line and a pretty good power running game. Still at issue is how well Favre has been integrated into the offense, coming on board so late in the preseason. Also, having gone 4-12 last year they started from a lower level, and this offense hasn't looked in synch yet.