Chew on this one for a minute: The Colts have won the AFC East more times than the Jets. The Colts have won the division six times; the Jets have won it twice.
And the Colts last played in the AFC East in 2001!
I bring this up because there has been a whole lot of talk about whether the Aaron Rodgers-led Jets can make it to the Super Bowl or win the Super Bowl. How about winning the division first?
The Jets have not won a division title since 2002. Current stars Sauce Gardner and Garrett Wilson were 2 years old. It was so long ago that Rodgers graduated high school a few months before the Jets won that division title.
It’s been a while.
The AFC East is loaded this year, but it also feels like the Jets’ best shot at a division title since at least the Rex Ryan years. The Jets have Rodgers and a defense that finished in the top five last year. They have the two returning rookies of the year in Wilson and Gardner.
If not a division title now, when?
“Yes, we are in a really tough division,” Jets coach Robert Saleh said Wednesday, “but they all have to play us too, so the mindset is always about us, it’s about what we can bring and it’s about whether they can stack up with us. Sounds cocky, I get it, but you can’t think of it any other way. It’s not about the opponent, it’s about what you do every day to be the best version of yourself.”
That sounds great, but at some point, Saleh, in a quiet moment, has to look at this division and shake his head. After two decades of dominance by the Patriots while the other three teams in the division took turns being laughingstocks, the AFC East is now the toughest division in football.
The Bills have won the past three division titles and remain a Super Bowl contender as long as Josh Allen is healthy.
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The Dolphins have the wide receiver duo of Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle along with a tough defense and quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, who looked like he was on the rise before concussions ended his season last year.
Then, there are the Patriots. On paper, they are the weakest team in the division, but if anyone can figure out how to get more out of a roster than the sum of its parts it is Bill Belichick.
All four AFC East teams could be viewed as potential playoff teams. There is not one in the group that you look at and say they will win only three or four games this season.
For the Jets, acquiring Rodgers in April changed expectations. Everything seems possible with him at quarterback. For the Jets, that needs to start with winning the division. Just last year, the Jets ended their 12-game losing streak in the division with a win over the Dolphins. They added another division win against the Bills to go 2-4 in the division. They’ll have to do much better to win a division title.
“We talk about owning the East, and you have to win your division games, and the easiest path to the playoffs is to win the division,” Saleh said. “You want to perform well in the division. Last year, we wanted to show that we can win a game, I think we were on a 300-game losing streak or whatever it was in the division, and we won a couple. And this year we want to win a couple more and just continue to build on the momentum that we’ve gained, but yeah, the division is always a big deal.”
It would be a huge deal for the Jets to actually win the division. The only two post-merger division titles have come in 1998 and 2002 (they won two more in the AFL Eastern Division). Since the AFC East formed in 1970, the Patriots have won it 21 times, the Dolphins 13, the Bills 10, the Colts six and the Jets twice.
A division title would mean so many things, but nothing more important than having a home playoff game for their fans, something the Jets have not had in MetLife Stadium, which is not exactly new anymore.
The division is good, but the Jets believe they are good, too. It is time to win a division.
If not now, when?
