The State of the City Teams Address, part 2

The Giants and Jets had two different seasons, with the G-Men giving their fans a ray of hope and the Jets fans reaching for the Pepto Bismol before September was over. The question that the fans have to ask themselves is "Is it better to not make the playoffs at all so that nobody's talking about you or is it better to get waxed by a score of 23-0 in a first round home playoff game after winning the division?"
The Giants had a season that would be considered successful by most standards (11-6 incl. playoffs, first place in the NFC East), but they had some disappointing losses as well that had they been wins they would have been set up even better for their first round matchup.
The 16-13 loss to Dallas was embarrassing, was were the two 24-21 losses; first to a Minnesota club that was in disarray all season (even if they did improve in the second half), and then in Seattle, where they should have won the game on several different occasions.
Yet they managed to hold on to beat the Redskins by one game to win the East, even though Washington beat the Giants on Dec. 24 by a score of 35-20 where the boys in blue barely showed up and Eli was awful.
Had they won two of those three games they would have finished with 13 wins, which would have given them the #1 seed in the NFC, and they would have had homefield advantage throughout the playoffs. More than likely they would have opened the playoffs with a home game against the Redskins, and I'm sure that they would have been out to avenge their Christmas Eve loss in their own stadium.
Even if they had accomplished that much and gone out in the next round, the taste that was left in the fans' mouth would not have been quite as bitter.
Chalk it up to a second-year quarterback making his first postseason start.
As for the Jets, it was a season that their fans will want to forget as soon as possible.
With a 4-12 record and winless on the road (and let's not forget that their division incudes trips to the powerhouse Dolphins and Bills), the Jets were about as bad as they could get.
Once again they lost their #1 QB, Chad Pennington, to injury. By the time that it was all said and done, they actually were on the phone with Vinny T. before season's end.
They began the season by getting scalped in Arrowhead, and the team never seemed to fully recover from the loss. The following week they beat the struggling Dolphins at home, only to follow that with a home loss to Jacksonville and an anemic offensive showing as they lost 13-3 in Baltimore.
Herman Edwards regrouped the troops to shock everyone when they beat Tampa Bay at home 14-12, but that would be about the highlight of the season as they would go on to lose seven in a row and nine of their final eleven games, with their other two wins on the year coming when they hosted a physically decimated Raiders' squad on week fourteen and three weeks later when they sent the Buffalo Bills home searching for answers.
Since this horrible season ended, they lost Edwards to the Chiefs, they have questions to answer about the durability of their quarterback, and they seemingly have more holes to fill than a block of Swiss cheese.
About the only positive that the New York Jets can take from the 2005 season is their draft pick. They will pick fourth, and if they're lucky, they'll take advantage of this pick and make the best move for this club.
Report cards for the Giants and Jets: Giants B-, Jets F