Theater of the Absurd

It’s absurd. A waste of gray matter. Unless these people have the skills of Michel de Nostredame, or own a crystal ball, how can anybody take any of this seriously or consider it news.

In the Steely Dan song, “Reeling in the Years,” there is a line, “the things that pass for knowledge, I can’t understand.”

To paraphrase that line, “the things that pass for news, I can’t understand.”

With Twitter and blogging, people are grasping at straws things to write about.

So the last few days, you had this gem – “Football Outsiders projects the Jets to go 6-10 in 2016 — 7-9 if Fitzpatrick re-signs.”

This is another one of those football analytics websites.

Cue Bill Belichick again – “”With all due respect to those websites, I don’t really know how some of that information is determined or evaluated. I know that in the past, we’ve looked at those websites — not any one in particular — but just in general we’ve looked at those websites and said, ‘OK, here’s their top rated guy. Where are we?’ Just to kind of gauge where we feel like the value of the websites are. If they’re rating them the same as we are, then maybe that’s something we need to keep a close eye on so we can start to track a lot of guys. If there’s a big discrepancy, then is there really any value to that? I’d say a lot of that stuff is, in my opinion, not real accurate, so take it with a grain of salt.”

Agreed.

So with that being said, that Jets prediction should be taken with the amount of sale in the Morton’s factory in Chicago.

But you know, even if you respect these analytics sites, to make record predictions right now is preposterous.

These teams haven’t had any veteran’s mini-camps, training camps, preseason games. We have no idea how their off-season plans are going to come together on the field.

If you add a lot of new players, let’s say like the New York Giants and Jacksonville Jaguars, there is no way at this point to know how the group is going to come together, how the chemistry is going to work. With so many moving parts in football, on offense, defense and special teams, chemistry is huge on the gridiron.

But more importantly, the NFL has the highest injury rate of any sport.

Unfortunately, guys are going to go down in mini-camps, training camps, preseason games, early in the season, and so forth. And health is a huge factor in the NFL. There is no way around that.

So not only don’t we know the health of the Jets, but the health of their opponents.

The Dolphins lost both their offensive tackles for a stretch last year and their best pass rusher Cameron Wake. You think that makes a difference? Of course it does.

Remember when the Jets played the Redskins and they had seven starters out.

The NFL is a war of attrition more than any sport. The Giants had 20 players on injured reserve last year, and it probably ended up costing Tom Coughlin his job.

So this prediction nonsense in May is foolish.

Not only for a website to come out with predictions now, but for other websites and newspapers, so hard up for news, to then quote the predictions.

Bart Scott made a prediction of sorts as well.

“With Fitzpatrick or without Fitzpatrick, with this [Jets] team, looking at their schedule, I don’t know if Ryan Fitzpatrick is enough anyway,” Scott said on SiriusXM NFL Radio. “Somebody has to step up and become a superstar. And it can’t be the guys that are already superstars. Something has to happen, because their schedule suggests that they’re not going to have the same record. Not even close to the same record as they had last year.”

I do think Leonard Williams is going to step up in Year Two and become a star. He had played well last year barely knowing what he was doing. Now with an off-season conditioning program to add some needed strength, and now improved technique, I think he’s going to be special in 2016. I also think the Jets secondary is going to be better this year. They were too old and slow at both cornerback spots last year. That is a recipe for problems in a passing league. This year, they will get younger at one spot with Antonio Cromartie gone, perhaps with Marcus Williams who had six picks in a reserve role, taking over. And they will get better on the other side because they won’t play Revis on an island as much. He will get help. The “island” strategy hurt them last year. I think they’ve moved on from that.

But I’m not making any predictions here. That would be hypocritical.

And stupid.

Especially in May.

May 13, 2016

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