The Jets are Classy

In sports, you win as a team and you lose as a team. Apparently, the New York Jets haven't figured that out yet. It's bad enough to go in the proverbial downward spiral, losing your last four out of five games to miss the playoffs. But it's another whole story when your players start throwing their teammates under the bus not even a week after their season ended. Thomas Jones and other "anonymous" teammates have been doing a lot of talking this week saying things like Brett Favre was distant from the team, his careless interceptions should have warranted a benching and coach Eric Mangini wasn't the reason the team missed the playoffs. Jones has since backtracked his comments, saying he has nothing but respect for Favre, but the damage has been done with his and other players comments.

I'm not going to say that Favre wasn't horrible down the stretch. He actually stunk, throwing seven picks in his last three games. But Favre wasn't the only one stinking it up on this team in December. There were a lot of dropped passes by Jet receivers in their final game against Miami so you can't put it all on Favre. Maybe Jones should point the finger at himself...he didn't run for 100 yards in his last four games while managing only 67 yards against Seattle and 23 yards against the Dolphins. Also, the Jets defense was an absolute joke the past month so there's plenty of blame to go around. Favre has always thrown picks throughout his career and still racked up wins all the time. The Jets knew what they were getting themselves into and the owner has already stated that he wants Favre to return next year.

The Jets were 8-4 with Favre and despite what happened at the end of the season, let's be honest...the Jets would not have been leading their division in Week 13 without Brett Favre. Who else were they going to turn to? Kellen Clemens? Come on. I wonder what kind of year Jones would have had running the football with Clemens behind center? He had a more productive season because defenses were accounting for Favre. Jones should think about that before opening his mouth.

Then there's anonymous players talking crap toward Favre about him being distant. All I have to say to that is if you aren't man enough to put your name behind what you are saying then don't go spreading rumors to the media or anyone. There's a better way to handle these issues. The Jets were already set up for an interesting offseason with the Favre retirement issue, but now these comments should make for a fun couple of months especially if Favre comes back. Jones and these anonymous players need to spend the offseason looking at themselves and figuring out what they can do to improve the team for next season.