Win or Else: Jets Can't Lose to the Dolphins

A loss on Monday Night Football would be devastating to the Jets' season

There are times for detailed scouting reports, discussions of matchups and hardcore breakdowns of the opposition when putting together previews of NFL games.

This is not one of those times. When the Jets take the field on Monday night, there is no need to delve into minutiae about the Dolphins because the game is going to come down to just one thing.

As the late Al Davis used to say, "Just Win, Baby." If the Jets do that, everything else will be meaningless.

That doesn't mean that there won't be things to fix because a team that's looked as bad as the Jets have looked to this point in the season isn't going to be able to fix everything over the course of one bye week. But those things are all secondary right now.

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The Jets need to win to quiet the doubters inside and outside of their locker room, they need a win to restore confidence in their approach to the game and they need a win to keep them from falling miles behind their competition for a spot in the playoffs.

It may just be Week Six, but a loss will have the Jets two games out of a Wild Card spot and 0-2 within the division with plenty of tough games still on their schedule.

So they need to win and it really doesn't matter how they get the job done. If they look great or if they eke out a win against a bad Dolphins team, the result is going to be the only thing that anyone cares about at the end of the game.

Sure, it would be nice to see the Jets pound the ball on the ground for four quarters and humiliate the Dolphins offense with a vintage Rex Ryan defensive performance. Seeing a complete game on both sides of the ball, something we haven't seen since the playoff wins last year, would be swell, too.

If those things don't happen and the Jets wind up with a win, though, you won't hear any complaints. One step at a time is the new mantra for a team that's had a habit of putting the cart a mile or two ahead of the horse since Ryan came to town.

Once you've got the win, you can start thinking about what comes next because, without the win, there won't be any next for this year's Jets.

Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City. You can follow him on Twitter and he is also a contributor to Pro Football Talk.

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