NY Jets: Game breakdown and prediction for Week 4 against the Broncos

The NY Jets are set to take on the Denver Broncos in a battle of the winless in Week 4.

The NY Jets are officially in a very delicate stage of their franchise, borderline rock bottom if not already there, and the result of this game could very well decide what the next step is to move this dysfunctional organization forward.

Last week was about as bad as you can get if you’re the Jets. I really made a hard push for them to get that upset win in Indianapolis and that completely flopped.

Now we have a beaten up Denver Broncos team coming into MetLife Stadium with a quarterback who’s never started a professional game before with a roster depleted from countless injuries on both sides of the ball.

On paper, the Jets actually don’t stack up too badly against this Broncos team. The Jets are at the bottom of pretty much every offensive and defensive category, but so are the Broncos.

What this game is going to come down to is quarterback play. I would like to hope Sam Darnold would have the edge in that department over a guy who has never started an NFL game.

The Jets rank 32nd in yards per game, 31st in passing yards per game, 28th in rushing yards per game, 15th in sacks allowed, 32nd in points per game, and 17th in yards per game allowed.

On top of that, they are 15th in passing yards per game allowed, 24th in rushing yards per game allowed, 19th in sacks accrued, 28th in points per game allowed, 24th in giveaways, and 23rd in takeaways.

Concurrently, the Broncos rank 29th in yards per game, 27th in passing yards per game, 29th in rushing yards per game, 30th in sacks allowed, 30th in points per game, 20th in yards per game allowed.

Moreover, they are 29th in passing yards per game allowed, 7th in rushing yards per game allowed, 26th in sacks accrued, 12th in points per game allowed, 23rd in giveaways, and 25th in takeaways.

As you can see, these two down teams match up very well against each other.

What’s going to swing me this week is defense. Even though Denver’s defense has been completely decimated by injuries from A.J. Bouye to Von Miller to Jurrell Casey and others.

However, 12th in points per game allowed raises my eyebrows. There is something to this Broncos defense even with its full potential not necessarily being reached.

Compare 12th in points per game allowed to the Jets ranking dead last in scoring in the league.

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The NY Jets will return some key pieces this week, but will it be enough?

Darnold will be getting some of his weapons back this week and next, however, will those be enough to get the better of a defense that has done a pretty decent job of keeping teams out of the end zone despite being 0-3? I’m not too confident in that.

On top of that, the Jets have now lost five of their last seven against the Broncos as well as eight of their last 12 and 16 of their last 23. They’re also 4-7 at home against the Broncos in their last 11 meetings under such circumstances.

Darnold is 1-0 against Denver, but he was also 1-0 against Indianapolis and look how that turned out.

Lots of the people out there are banking on a Jets loss to get Adam Gase out of a job, so I think it’s fair to say even the most die-hard Jet fans might be secretly pulling for Brett Rypien and the Broncos to pull out a victory this Thursday.

I’m putting myself in timeout this week with picking Jets games. I whiffed hard last week against Indy, so this week I’m not going to get too crazy and try to force a Jets victory against a down team with as many if not more injuries.

Denver also plays the New England Patriots next week, so are they really that bad that they’re going to start this season off 0-5? I say nay.

I have the Broncos winning this game 27-23 and notching their first victory of the season even though the Jets are slight favorites. They started out as underdogs, but I’m not going to be fooled by the change in lines due to everybody out there betting on the Broncos.

Give me Denver across the board as well as the over 40.5 points. Hopefully, the Jets can figure out what the next step is and turn this ship around sooner rather than later.