New York at Baltimore

Wow! The Jets looked bad last week. The Pats spanked them around the field as they lost 38-14. Randy Moss may still be catching passes. The Jets lost their starting QB and now throw a rookie to the wolves - the mean, tough defense of the Baltimore Ravens. How can we be backing the Jets you ask? Simple. This spread is way too high. Baltimore has an amazing defense. This is true. But, their offense, under backup Kyle Boller is bad. Steve McNair may not be the second coming that Baltimore hoped for. But, he's a massive improvement over Boller. We have always thought Boller was a bad QB and our opinion hasn't changed. And the Jets aren't as bad as they showed last week. Basically Randy Moss (and maybe to some extent a video camera) beat them. They let Moss go off for nine grabs for 183 yards and a touchdown. They were not ready for him and played him horribly, letting him get free releases all day. Live and learn. But the Ravens have no one like Moss. Their offense is mediocre with McNair and sub-par with Boller. What about Chad Pennington going down? Well, it may not be a bad thing. While you never want to send a rookie into face the Ravens' defense, this kid is no average rookie. He could be exceptional. Note that the Jets had opportunities to draft Matt Leinart and Jay Cutler and passed on both before grabbing Clemens. He has as strong an arm as any of the recent rookies except for Cutler. When the Ravens blitz him, he could have some success deep. Also, when a key player like Pennington goes out, and all looks grim, teammates often pick up the slack in a big way in that first game back. They know that they must shoulder more of the load to help out the new guy. They play at 110% across the board in an effort to pick up the slack. We expect a good performance from the Jets overall here. In addition to the loss of McNair, the Ravens suffered the loss of Pro Bowl tackle Jonathan Ogden and punt returner BJ Sams and Ray Lewis tore his right triceps muscle. Last year the Jets were 6-2 SU and ATS on the road under new head coach Eric Mangini. We think they bounce back to some extent this week and put a scare into Baltimore, keeping it to single figures at worst.