There were two stories about the Jets that filtered through on Sunday even though the team wasn't one of the 24 playing their Week Five games.
The first was Michael Lombardi of the NFL Network's report that the Jets had more than 12,000 seats available for Monday night's game against the Texans. The Jets quickly denied the report, but it's hard to deny the lack of enthusiasm about the team's prospects among members of the general public.
The second was Jay Glazer of FOX's report that the Jets plan to use Tim Tebow more heavily against the Texans than they've used him through the first four weeks of the season. If one were so inclined, they could draw a line from one report to the other.
If a team were looking to sell a bunch of tickets to games over the rest of the season, there would be worse ways to do it than to give a lot of playing time to a player with Tebow's following. Whether or not it would acutally work would come down to Tebow's ability to replicate the miraculous wins he authored for the Broncos last season.
There's only one way to find out and the Jets are running out of reasons not to hand the reins to Tebow and see what happens. With Dustin Keller and Stephen Hill doubtful, they'll likely take the field against Houston with a receiver corps made up of Jeremy Kerley, Jeff Cumberland, Clyde Gates, the recently signed Jason Hill and Chaz Schilens.
Quake away, Houston defense. Even if Mark Sanchez were showing signs of developing into a winning NFL quarterback, he'd have a hard time pulling together a win with that group behind this offensive line and aided by an unappealing running game.
So maybe this is where you do what the Broncos did last season, throw your hands up in the air and see what Tebow is able to do. If he can win a couple of games, then things suddenly look a lot less gloomy around the Jets and people are flocking to football's version of a revival meeting.
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If it doesn't, it's not like you're passing up on one of the great offenses this game has ever known and the season can settle down into the irrelevance it has seemed destined for since the summer.
Josh Alper is also a writer for Pro Football Talk. You can follow him on Twitter.
