We should’ve known the Jets were doomed as soon the entire cast of Monday Night Countdown picked them to win Monday’s game, despite being 3-point underdogs against the Los Angeles Chargers. There’s quite a history of analysts from particular media outlets all picking a game one way and then getting roasted when they’re wrong, sometimes even by the teams or athletes involved.
And Monday night night was no exception.
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Each of Scott Van Pelt, Ryan Clark, Marcus Spears, and Robert Griffin III had New York scoring 20 points or more and winning in a close game.
And in essence, who could blame them? This Jets team finds ways to win games that they aren’t supposed to. It isn’t pretty — and Week 8’s win over their roommates was as ugly as it gets — a win is a win in this league, and no matter what, a mentally tough, Super Bowl-caliber defense is going to keep them in every game.
Well, New York finally found that the way it was winning games wasn’t sustainable. And despite a valiant effort from its defense on MNF, they lost by three touchdowns, 27-6. According to Opta Stats on Twitter/X, the Jets are the only NFL team in the Super Bowl era to have their defense collect five-plus sacks, hold the opponent to under 200 yards, and not allow any 25-plus yards play, and yet lose the game by 20 points or more.
Perhaps the quartet of Van Pelt, Clark, Spears, and Griffin could’ve foreseen that the team with eight offensive touchdowns through seven games wasn’t going to move the football at will on Monday. However, they also probably didn’t think that the Jets offense, which has played mistake-free football, would surrender three turnovers and one of the better special teams units in the league would give up a punt return for a touchdown in the game’s first five minutes. Not to mention, the defense didn’t force a turnover. Without it, the Jets were doomed.
The Chargers social media account — which is one of the best in the league — dunked on NFL Network, rather than ESPN.
7 of 10 analysts picked the Jets to beat the Chargers, which isn’t as unanimous as all four members of the same panel picked the same team to win, and the game was aired exclusively on ESPN and ABC.
If most all of the prognosticators on ESPN had picked the Jets but it hadn’t been unanimous, this wouldn’t get as much attention. But every member of ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown crew selected one team, a team that then lost by 21 points. Yeah, perhaps one should go against the grain just for the sake of it next time.
[AA/Los Angeles Chargers on X]
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.