The Jets already threw a wrench into the tank standings once this season.
They are determined not to do it again Sunday by helping yet another team smash the goose egg in the win column.
After hitting rock bottom by giving the Dolphins their first win of the year in Week 9, the Jets travel to face the 0-11 Bengals on Sunday, trying to keep their newfound winning streak alive instead of snapping another team’s skid.
“For us, we’re 4-7. We were 1-7 not long ago,” coach Adam Gase said Wednesday. “We had our struggles and things turned around a little bit for us. So we know what we need to — we need to have a great focus.”
Gase said he has not brought up the loss to the Dolphins as a precautionary tale this week because that was a “different situation” and a “different group of guys.”
Jamal Adams said he, “couldn’t even tell you when that [Dolphins game] was” — it was just earlier this month — but the Jets have looked like a different team since then, with three straight wins.
“I think we’re playing smarter as a team, I’ll put it like that,” Adams said.
The red-hot safety said playing smarter meant “playing complementary football,” but it could also mean not falling into the trap of thinking a winless team could be a walkover. The Jets learned that the hard way when they went to Miami and lost to an organization that was 0-7 and does not want to win.
The Bengals are in the driver’s seat for the No. 1 pick, but the Jets don’t want any of that talk.
“It doesn’t matter what the record is for those guys,” Adams said. “It doesn’t matter what the record is for us. It’s another opportunity. Any team in the NFL can be beat, so you have to show up each and every Sunday, Monday or Thursday, and go out there and compete. Obviously you can see around the league, if you don’t show up, you can be down.”
The Bengals have at least been able to sniff victory in recent weeks. In Week 11 at Oakland, they hung with the Raiders before losing 17-10. Sunday, they led the Steelers at halftime and went into the fourth quarter tied before dropping a 16-10 decision.
“The last two weeks, especially Cincinnati’s defense, they’ve played well,” Gase said. “They just haven’t won the game. But you see the improvement on tape and that’s what our biggest focus is. We talked about it today. We watch the tape, we prepare, we go practice, we have to go execute. And we’re going on the road in the NFL. Those are never easy games to be a part of. The weather’s probably not going to be great. We gotta be wired in. We gotta make sure we bring our ‘A’ game.”
The Bengals will also have Andy Dalton back under center. The veteran redhead was benched last month for rookie Ryan Finley after completing 60.4 percent of his passes for 2,252 yards, nine touchdowns and eight interceptions in eight games. But Finley’s three-game audition ended last week after similarly ineffective play, and the Bengals announced Monday that Dalton would return as the starter.
Adams welcomed the news.
“Excited. I’m excited for the challenge,” he said. “It’s a great group over there, they’re well-coached and obviously their record doesn’t show it, but they play some good ball over there.”
For all the Jets’ good intentions, there is precedent for them being an opponent’s lone victim of the season. The 1968 Bills, 1972 Oilers, 1980 Saints and 1991 Colts all won one game — against the Jets. This year’s Dolphins, after getting that first win against the Jets, beat the Colts the next week for win No. 2.
For more on the Jets, listen to the latest episode of the “Gang’s All Here” podcast:
