“Meh, it’s only the Commanders.”
“Meh, it’s only the Giants.”
“Meh, it’s only practice.”
These dismissals were tossed around by naysayers after the New York Jets’ thorough beatdowns of the Commanders and Giants in joint practices.
New York’s second joint practice with the Carolina Panthers received mixed reviews (although they finished very strong), but it was unanimously agreed that New York completely steamrolled Washington and Big Blue. Overall, the Jets accumulated an impressive body of work across the three joint practices. They looked overwhelmingly better than the teams across from them. If it were three regular season games, it would be the equivalent of a 3-0 record with two blowout wins and one narrow win.
Yes, these three teams have among the lowest expectations in the NFL entering 2024. At FanDuel Sportsbook, the Giants and Commanders have over-unders of 6.5 wins, while the Panthers are at 5.5.
So what?
Winning a Super Bowl requires you to be successful against every type of opponent the NFL has to offer. Not just the elite teams, but the bottom feeders, too.
Long before you can win playoff games against fellow title contenders, you need to establish yourself as a title contender by gaining separation from the bottom of the league. Want to make the playoffs? Want home-field advantage? Want a bye? Well, a major part of accomplishing those goals is having the ability to clean house against the softer parts of your schedule.
This is something the Jets have struggled to do for a long, long time.
Since 2011 (the beginning of their playoff drought), the Jets have a measly 48-42 (.533) record against teams that finished the season with a losing record. Only the Jaguars (38-45 / .458) have a worse record against losing teams over that period.
The league average win percentage was .670. Of the league’s 32 teams, 26 were above .600, while 11 were above .700. The Jets barely won half.
That is not going to cut it if the goal is to hoist a Vince Lombardi trophy.
Dominating bad teams is an essential part of being a champion. Look no further than the Kansas City Chiefs. Over their five-year run as Super Bowl regulars (2019-23), the Chiefs have a 38-6 record against teams that finished with a losing record. That’s a win percentage of .864, trailing only the Ravens’ .882 over that span.
The only two other teams to win a Super Bowl over the past five years are also in the top-five of winning percentage against losing teams. Tampa Bay is fourth with a 34-9 record (.791) while the Los Angeles Rams closely trail with a 29-8 record (.784).
The Patriots were incredible at this during the Brady-Belichick era. From 2001-18, New England went a league-best 115-16 against losing teams – downright unbelievable over an 18-season span. Their .878 win percentage was nearly nine points better than the second-ranked Colts (.791), a larger gap than the one between the Colts and the 14th-ranked Vikings (.708) over that span.
Most Super Bowl-winning teams enjoy near-flawless runs against sub-.500 teams. Here are the records against losing teams of the last 10 Super Bowl champions:
- 2023 Chiefs: 8-2 (.800)
- 2022 Chiefs: 9-1 (.900)
- 2021 Rams: 9-0 (1.000)
- 2020 Buccaneers: 9-0 (1.000)
- 2019 Chiefs: 8-1 (.889)
- 2018 Patriots: 6-3 (.667)
- 2017 Eagles: 8-0 (1.000)
- 2016 Patriots: 8-1 (.889)
- 2015 Broncos: 7-1 (.875)
- 2014 Patriots: 5-0 (1.000)
Overall record: 77-9, a win percentage of .895. With the exception of the 2018 Patriots, every other team was at .800 or better. Eight of the 10 teams lost either one or zero games against losing teams.
You must be able to defeat weak teams with tremendous consistency if you want to put yourself in an ideal position come playoff time. That doesn’t mean winning half of your winnable games. It doesn’t mean winning 60% of them. Not even 70%. Championship-caliber teams should be capable of winning at least 80% of their games against sub-.500 teams.
And that’s why the Jets’ joint practice success is meaningful. They are showing the ability to take care of business against the league’s bottom feeders, which is something they must do at a high level in 2024 if they plan on winning a competitive AFC East.
The Jets’ 2024 schedule features 11 games against teams that currently have a projected over-under of 8.5 wins or less (per FanDuel). Obviously, many of those teams will finish with winning records, while some of the teams projected to have winning records will likely have losing records. For the sake of this exercise, though, let’s say the Jets play 10 games against losing teams, as the Chiefs did in each of the past two seasons.
If the Jets won 80% of those 10 games, that would put them at 8 wins. By going 8-2 in those games, they only have to go 4-3 in their seven games against winning teams to finish 12-5. To take it a step further, if they can manage to go 9-1 against losing teams, then a 4-3 record against winning teams would net 13 wins. They could also still go 12-5 with a measly 3-4 record against winning teams if they go 9-1 against the losing teams.
That is the value of dominating bad teams. If you clean house in those games, you have the leeway to stumble a few times against the league’s elite teams and still finish with enough wins to claim your division.
To win games against bad teams at an elite rate (.800 or better), the key is to utterly destroy them on the scoreboard. If you let too many games come down to the wire, the opponent will steal some wins. Any NFL team can win a close game in the fourth quarter; it only takes one friendly bounce. But if you consistently blow bad teams out of the building, you will leave less room for toss-ups to bounce the wrong way.
This is something the Jets have long been incapable of doing. Even when the Jets have beaten bad teams, it was rarely in convincing fashion.
Since 2011, the Jets only have 14 victories by three-plus scores (17+ points) against teams that finished with a losing record, tying them for the eighth-fewest in the NFL. That’s about one blowout against a bad team per season.
Since Robert Saleh was hired in 2021, the Jets have only done it twice. The last instance was their 31-10 win over the Bears in Week 12 of the 2022 season. Since then, the Jets have gone eight consecutive games against losing teams without winning by three-plus scores. Over that span, they posted a poor record of 4-4, and their point differential was -6 (-0.8 per game).
The Jets even find themselves getting blown out by bad teams. Since 2011, they have suffered a league-leading 13 losses by three-plus scores to teams that finished with a losing record. This is more than double the league-average number of such losses over this span (5.9).
Overall, the Jets have a 30th-ranked point differential of +36 against losing teams since 2011, or +0.4 per game. They have essentially been dead-even with bad teams over the past decade-plus. And why would you expect anything else? They’ve been a bad team themselves.
As an elite team, though, the goal is to run circles around teams on the opposite end of the standings. Super Bowl-winning teams don’t only beat bad teams; they beat them up.
Here are the point differentials against losing teams of the last 10 Super Bowl champions:
- 2023 Chiefs: +70 in 10 games (+7.0)
- 2022 Chiefs: +83 in 10 games (+8.3)
- 2021 Rams: +129 in 9 games (+14.3)
- 2020 Bucs: +137 in 9 games (+15.2)
- 2019 Chiefs: +122 in 9 games (+13.6)
- 2018 Patriots: +97 in 9 games (+10.8)
- 2017 Eagles: +119 in 8 games (+14.9)
- 2016 Patriots: +112 in 9 games (+12.4)
- 2015 Broncos: +47 in 8 games (+5.9)
- 2014 Patriots: +61 in 5 games (+12.2)
Overall point differential: +977 in 86 games, an average of +11.4 per game. For perspective on how great a +11.4 point differential is, here are some teams who had a point differential in that range (across the full season):
- 2023 49ers: +11.4 (12-5, NFC Champs)
- 2013 Seahawks: +11.6 (13-3, SB Champs)
- 2007 Colts: +11.8 (13-3)
- 2006 Chargers: +11.8 (14-2)
- 2004 Patriots: +11.1 (14-2, SB Champs)
So, if you want to crush bad teams to the tune of a Super Bowl-caliber squad, then whenever you face them, you need to play at a level equivalent to the Legion of Boom Seahawks, the Chargers with an MVP LaDainian Tomlinson, or the peak Peyton Manning Colts. That’s the formula for winning a certain segment of games 90% of the time. You need to blow out the opponent in a large portion of the games so you can minimize the number of nail-biting games that ultimately come down to luck.
This is why it matters that the Jets not only came out on top in their joint practices with Washington and the Giants, but did so in overwhelming fashion. They showed that they are not going to take weak opponents lightly this year. We know New York has one of the most talented rosters in the NFL, so if they bring their best every week and avoid playing down to their opponent’s level, they will rack up plenty of blowout wins.
The last time the Jets were close to Super Bowl contention was also the last time they were dominant against bad teams. In 2010, the Jets went 9-1 with a +100 point differential (+10.0) against teams that finished with a losing record. Those numbers are right on par with the barometers we established today by looking at recent Super Bowl champions. So, it’s no surprise that the 2010 Jets nearly claimed an AFC title.
If the 2024 Jets can consistently stomp weak teams the way they have on the practice field this summer, they will have a great chance of winning most of their games against sub-.500 squads, therefore putting themselves in a prime position to win the AFC East.
Yes, these were only joint practices and should be taken with a grain of salt. Nonetheless, Jets fans should be excited that the team showed glimpses of bringing back a championship-caliber trait that we haven’t seen from them since, well, the last time they were championship-caliber.
