Round Two Picks, Confidence 8

Chargers over Jets
You’ve got to be kidding me on this one. I still can’t believe the Jets are in the playoffs. The Colts and Cincinnati better be getting thank you cards in the mail this week, because there’s no way the Jets would have made the playoffs if those two teams had played with any fire in the last two weeks of the season. Excluding their last two games, the Jets played three games against playoff teams and averaged 13 points for those three games. The Jets survive solely with their defense, and I don’t think it will hold up against the Chargers in San Diego. San Diego hasn’t scored fewer than 20 points once this season; and as good as the Jets defense is, it’s not that good. Phillip Rivers will still get between 250-300 passing yards (his season average is 265), and will lead to Chargers to at least 27 points. LaDainian Tomlinson seems to always be beat up, and the bye week last week should really do him some good (don’t forget about Darren Sproles, either). Jets’ cornerback Derrelle Revis will probably end up making Chargers top receiver Vincent Jackson a nonfactor, I’ll give you that. But Rivers should still be able to find either his Pro Bowl TE Antonio Gates or 6’5” receiver Malcom Floyd, who had 140 receiving yards in his last game of the season. The Chargers D isn’t anything special, but they should be able to stop the one-minded offense of the Jets, who rely exclusively on their run game. If you look at the Jets’ wins this season, they’ve beat up on poor rush defenses. And at home, the Chargers allow only 100 rush yards per game and .6 rush TDs per game. A third of their wins came against teams that allow over 150 rush yards per game (which only four teams in the NFL did); averaged together, the eight teams that the Jets did beat allowed 131 yards per game. Only six teams actually surrendered that many rush yards. What all that means is that the Jets do well against teams with weak rush defenses. And although the Chargers run defense might not be the best, it’s pretty good—and the Jets only beat one team (other than an unmotivated Cincy in Week 17) with a worse run defense than the Chargers. In his last six games, Jets’ QB Mark Sanchez averages 131 pass yards, and I don’t expect the Jets to score more than 20 points this weekend.