A lot has been written about the six touchdowns Brett Favre threw leading the Jets to 56 points against the Cardinals.
Not so much has been said about the 35 points the Cardinals put up in the second half. It sounds even worse when you consider the Jets gave up 48 points the week before to the Chargers.
Though the Bengals are winless, they showed some spunk in two difficult road games. The first at the Meadowlands against the Giants, where they lost 26-23 in overtime, then last week in Dallas, where they fell 31-22 to the Cowboys.
And the Bengals have two explosive options at wide receiver, T.J. Houshmandzadeh and Chad Ocho Cinco, who the Jets will have to worry about Sunday.
“He can do it all,” Jets safety Kerry Rhodes said of Ocho Cinco. “He can go deep. He can run the intermediate routes. He can catch the short pass and take it the distance. He can go up and get the ball. He can beat you sideways.”
And the Jets’ secondary will be short-handed without strong safety Eric Smith, who will be serving a one-game suspension for his hit on Cardinals receiver Anquan Boldin.
Eric Mangini has several players he can turn to without Smith in the lineup.
“Abe (Abram Elam) has been working there,” Mangini said. “David Barrett has worked there. Hank (Poteat) has worked there, so we have a few different options in terms of who can play back there. Some combination of those players (will be used) or, depending on how the week goes, maybe one more than the other.”
Defensive end Shaun Ellis said he thinks the defense will be stronger coming off the bye week.
“I think the main thing from this year that has really been hurting us are the self-inflicted wounds, like penalties,” Ellis said. “That is one thing we need to concentrate on during this bye week. We have been doing a lot of things good, but we can do a lot better in putting emphasis on the things that have been hurting us and trying to fix those problems.
“I think we are playing pretty good right now so hopefully we can expand on it (the defense) and start putting more things in. We have some things we need to get ironed out. The bye week hopefully solves that. Teams always come back to pull something that gave you problems, maybe six games down the line.
“You have to be on your toes at all times about situations that teams can try to put you in that can refer back to (another) game.”
This is Bengals team similar to the one that put up 38 points against the Jets last season.
“They are 0-5 and very easily could be 5-0,” linebacker Eric Barton said. “They have been in every game and you have to look who they have played. They have had very close games. They are a dangerous team. They have Chad Johnson, T.J. Houshmandzadeh. They are a tough group to deal with as we learned last year.”