Jets Try Not to Overlook Raiders

Football Betting Lines

12/29/2006 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - It's a tough week for New York Jets fans.

Serving as a silent counterweight to the prospect of their team giddily reaching the playoffs against an inferior foe in its home stadium on the afternoon of New Year's Eve, is the always-present knowledge that it's all been promised up like this before.

So, in the midst of such a fairy tale set-up, here's a little fatalist reality:

In 1993, a season-ending victory at already-clinched Houston would have given the 8-7 Jets a playoff berth. Instead, the team lost, 24-0, to the Bucky Richardson-led Oilers and prompted the inglorious exit of coach Bruce Coslet.

In 1997, a season-ending victory at 8-7 Detroit would have given the 9-6 Jets a playoff berth with quarterback Neil O'Donnell. Instead, the team lost, 13-10, to finish a three-losses-in-four-games stretch run for first-year coach Bill Parcells.

And in 2000, a season-ending victory at already-clinched Baltimore would have given the 9-6 Jets a playoff berth. Instead, the team lost, 34-20, blowing a 14-point first-quarter lead and spoiling a career-best 481-yard passing day from Vinny Testaverde.

Such a recurrent pattern of holiday bait-and-switch might be sufficient to make a die-hard "Gang Greener" reach for his autographed Rich Kotite pistol, even before names like Doug Brien, Blair Thomas and Browning Nagle enter the subconscious.

Still, the few surviving optimists of the bunch will insist this year is different.

Under first-year coach Eric Mangini - who's used a mix of Belichick-like solemnity and Rocky-esque motivation to concoct a team - the perennial swamp- side second bananas have cleared many adverse obstacles their more-talented predecessors never could.

A 41-point throttling in Jacksonville was followed by two wins. An ugly pre- bye loss at Cleveland preceded a victory at New England. And a wretched 18- point home no-show against Buffalo yielded a pair of road upsets and set Sunday's celebratory stage.

Somehow, the "same old Jets" have not only become the newly-crowned football kings of New Jersey, but also the newly-found underdog darlings of TV producers amid the glut of Sunday morning NFL preview shows.

A win over 2-13 Oakland would give the 9-6 Jets a clear path into the playoffs in January's initial week, where they could meet either Baltimore, Indianapolis or New England, pending the results of the rest of the conference's weekend games.

A loss...well, let's just say it'd make things a little less jubilant in the Valhalla that is the Newark suburbs, except for those fans somehow predisposed to jumping about in celebration of the big-game misery that's traditionally dogged Jets Nation.

"We've got to come and play a good game and focus on that game, and focus on winning that game," said the always-staid Mangini, whose team will host the festivities at 1 pm "I believe now things are fully in our control."

Control, meanwhile, seems a word barely still applicable to the Raiders.

Veteran coach Art Shell has endured a dreadful return to the silver and black sidelines after a multi-year/multi-coach hiatus, dealing with injuries to quarterback Aaron Brooks and feature runner LaMont Jordan, as well as the perpetual pain in the neck chaos that's surrounded star wideout Randy Moss.

Both Moss and Brooks are questionable this week with ankle and neck injuries. And Jordan, a former Jet who came to Oakland as a free agent prior to the 2005 season, has been labeled "out for the season" since hurting a knee in mid- November.

Oakland saw its season-worst losing streak reach eight games last weekend, when it dropped a 20-9 decision to Kansas City in the tattered remnants of what was once the AFC's premier on-field rivalry. In addition, the game was the eighth straight in which the once point-prodigious Raiders failed to post more than 14.

"I can't make miracles happen," Brooks said. "Right now, it seems like we need a miracle to make something happen offensively."

SERIES HISTORY

The Raiders hold a 19-13-2 lead in their all-time regular season series with the Jets, but have lost each of the last two meetings against New York. The Jets were 26-10 home winners when the teams met in Week 14 of last season, and also took a 27-24 overtime decision in Oakland in 2003. The Raiders' most recent win in the regular season series took place in 2002, at home, and their last road win in the series occurred in 1996.

In addition to the regular season series, the teams have split four postseason meetings all-time. The Jets defeated the Raiders in the 1968 AFL Championship and in a 1982 AFC Second-Round Playoff. Oakland returned the favor by downing New York in a 2001 AFC First-Round Playoff and a 2002 Divisional Playoff.

The most infamous contest played between the two franchises took place on Nov. 17, 1968, when the Raiders came from behind in the waning moments to defeat the Jets, 43-32, in Oakland. NBC-TV ill-advisedly switched programming to the movie "Heidi" with 1:05 to play, just after the Jets had taken a 32-29 lead. The tilt has gone down in NFL legend as the "Heidi Game."

Shell is 2-0 against the Jets as a head coach, including a 14-7 win in the first game of his head coaching career, at the Meadowlands in Week 5 of the 1989 season. The Jets' Mangini will be meeting both Shell and Oakland for the first time as head coach.

RAIDERS OFFENSE VS. JETS DEFENSE

The aforementioned stats and quote pretty much illustrate the plight of a team that's 28th overall in weekly rushing yardage (95.4), 31st in passing yardage (153.3) and a rock-bottom-in-the-NFL 32nd in total yardage (248.7).

Should Brooks miss the game with his neck malady, the Raiders would go with youngster Andrew Walter, who's thrown 13 interceptions to just three touchdowns while spelling Brooks at various points during the season.

Walter, for what it matters, has won two of his last five starts.

In Jordan's absence, the running game is in the hands of Justin Fargas, who ran for a career-best 90 yards on 19 carries against the Chiefs last week and has racked up 580 yards and one touchdown on 161 carries for the season.

Veteran receiver Jerry Porter will miss the game with a hip injury, leaving more of the responsibility to the dinged-up Moss and youngster Ronald Curry, who has a career-best 28 receptions over his last three games.

He had 11 catches against Kansas City and leads the team with 57 - for 680 yards and one TD - on the season. The last Raider to catch at least 11 in a game had been Tim Brown, who grabbed 13 in October 2002.

Elsewhere, Oakland's turnover ratio is a charitable minus-20.

Defensively, the Jets have been an improving work in progress since the 41-0 blowout to the Jaguars. Only two opponents since have scored more than 20 points, a 10-game stretch in which New York has gone 7-3.

Yardage-wise, the team is 25th overall with 339.8 surrendered per game, though the pass defense has improved to 16th in the league while the collective run- stopping prowess is 25th.

Linebacker/end hybrid Bryan Thomas has a team-high 8.5 sacks overall and has had at least one sack in six of his last eight games. Also, linebacker Victor Hobson has four sacks in his last three outings.

Cornerback Andre Dyson and safety Kerry Rhodes share the team lead with five interceptions.

JETS OFFENSE VS. RAIDERS DEFENSE

Much like the Monday night game against the Dolphins, the Jets this week face a record-poor foe that nonetheless sports one of the league's top defensive units.

Quarterback Chad Pennington was often sloppy and occasionally excellent in the rain in Miami, completing just 14-of-29 passes for the game but nonetheless leading a 2-minute drill that ended with the game-winning points.

Pennington, in two career starts against the Raiders, is 40-for-61 for 534 yards, four touchdowns, one interception and a 108.2 QB rating. Already at a career high in yardage with 3,195, the Marshall product needs 205 to become the seventh passer in Jets history to reach 3,400 in a single season.

Favorite target Laveranues Coles took a vicious hit from Zach Thomas on a Pennington floater across the middle against Miami, but is expected to play this week even though he's against listed questionable on an always-crowded New York injury report.

Coles is tied for third in the NFL with 89 catches and has scored six times while gaining 1,074 yards. His wideout mate, Jerricho Cotchery, needs 92 yards to reach 1,000, which would give the team a pair of four-digit pass catchers for the first time since Keyshawn Johnson and Wayne Chrebet in 1998.

The three-pronged running game made a star out of little man Leon Washington last week, primarily after his 60-plus yard gallop with a screen pass on the game's clinching possession. For the season, Washington has run for 597 yards in 136 carries.

Cedric Houston, who was absent last week with a calf injury, has gone for 208 yards and three touchdowns in his last three games. And ex-49er Kevan Barlow, who's scored seven touchdowns, has helped the team to wins in four of the five games in which he's found the end zone.

The Jets are 20th in the league in per-week rushing offense (108.1 yards) and 17th in passing (200.3), giving them an overall yardage rank of 308.3 (21st in the league).

Their turnover ratio is minus-3.

On the other side, Oakland's defense is routinely the reason the Raiders have even had a chance at staying competitive into the late going of games this season.

In a statistical anomaly, the team has yielded 135.1 yards per game on the ground - 27th in the league - but is first among the 32 teams with just 150.9 yards allowed in the air. Of course, most teams are playing with a lead against them, making them less likely to rack up big numbers in passing yardage.

Overall, the 286 yards allowed per game is the league's fourth-best average.

Individually, cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha has picked off eight passes to lead the team and place him in a second-place tie in the NFL as a whole. The last Raider to grab at least nine in a season was Lester Hayes, who had 13 picks in 1980.

Derrick Burgess leads the pass rush with 11 sacks, followed closely by veteran ex-Buccaneeer Warren Sapp, who has nine, his most since getting 16.5 with Tampa Bay in 2000. One more for Sapp would give him 10 for the fourth time in his 12-year career.

OVERALL ANALYSIS

It's watershed time for the Jets.

With a win and the playoff ticket that comes with it, Mangini will have gone a long way toward shedding the laughingstock mentality that's followed the franchise since its Super Bowl win in January 1969. While with a loss, much of the shine of a five-win improvement over last season's injury-filled Herman Edwards swan song will be lost.

Toward that end, the self-professed boxing buff coach - who's made a habit of showing his team old fight clips on the eve of big games - might want to take a look at such recent upsets as Spinks-Ali, Barkley-Hearns and Douglas-Tyson, in which a seemingly unbeatable and forward-looking favorite was toppled by a unheralded opponent.

It could happen here. But it says here that it won't.

Somebody get Springsteen on the phone - the Jets are going to the "Promised Land."

Sportsbook Betting Lines Predicted Outcome: Jets 20, Raiders 10