NY Jets make history with early elimination from playoff contention

The NY Jets have made history with their early elimination from playoff contention.

The NY Jets fell to a woeful 0-10 this Sunday when they lost by a final score of 34-28 to the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 11. And in doing so, with a little additional help, they have officially been eliminated from playoff contention.

The Jets became the first team this season to officially miss the playoffs following their loss to the Chargers and the Indianapolis Colts’ victory over the Green Bay Packers in overtime.

To avoid elimination, the Jets needed to either win their game (which was always the biggest longshot) or have both the Miami Dolphins and Colts lose.

The Jets lost which ruled out that possibility, but while the Dolphins also fell short against the Denver Broncos, the Colts’ victory officially shut the door on any playoff hopes the Jets may have had.

Obviously, this was an inevitable outcome. The Jets are quite clearly the worst team in the NFL and one of the worst the league has seen in some time. The playoffs haven’t seemed like a realistic possibility since Week 2.

Just the fact that the Jets have been eliminated from playoff contention isn’t news, but how quickly they managed to do it is certainly noteworthy.

The NY Jets made NFL history with their rapid elimination

With their Week 11 elimination, the Jets became one of the fastest teams to ever be eliminated from playoff contention since the 1990 playoff format was adopted. This is even more staggering considering a whopping seven teams from each conference make the playoffs now.

The 2019 Cincinnati Bengals became the quickest team since “at least” 2002 to be eliminated from playoff contention when they fell to 0-10 in Week 11 of last year.

The Jets have now matched that feat. But they’ve managed to do so with an additional playoff team in their conference.

Since 1990, only 13 teams have been eliminated from playoff contention with six games to play in the season. The Bengals were the first to accomplish that since 2002 when they did so last year.

The Jets are now the first team to be eliminated under the newest playoff format. And it’s very likely that their record of being the quickest stands for a long, long time.

This marks the 10th consecutive season that the Jets have missed the postseason — one shy of their franchise-record 11-year playoff drought from 1970 to 1980.

And by the looks of things, it’s going to take a complete overhaul to avoid tying that dubious record next season.

The Jets aren’t just eliminated from playoff contention, but they managed to do so quicker than anyone could have expected.

It’s going to take some serious malpractice for another NFL team to be eliminated earlier under the current playoff format at any point in the future.