Jets' Richardson not looking too far down road
Photo credit: Ed Betz | File - Tony Richardson carries the ball during preseason workouts. (September 16, 2009)
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Nov. 1: Miami 30, Jets 25
FLORHAM PARK, N.J. - Tony Richardson could have chosen to do anything else.
Enjoy the unseasonably warm temperatures by taking the family out for a Sunday picnic. Hop in his car and cruise the streets while bumping some tunes. Find a quiet spot tucked away somewhere in the rolling hills of western New Jersey and enjoy the fall scenery to continue to take his mind off the grind.
Instead, the 37-year-old fullback spent the last day of his nearly weeklong respite parked in front of his high-definition flat screen, checking out some NFL action rather than soaking up the final few hours of his midseason break.
"You realize how much you miss it," Richardson said. "You realize the opportunities that you have in front of you. Obviously, there are two teams that are still undefeated and playing dominant football. But you look around the league and there's a lot of parity. So you look at it and say, 'OK, we're 4-4, but why can't we continue to improve? Why can't we get better and why can't we compete with some of the best teams in the league?'
"And it starts this weekend with trying to get one win."
The Jets got back to work Monday, beginning to knock off some of the rust that accompanied the unusual six days off Rex Ryan gave them during their bye week. With stinging losses in four of their last five games heading into Sunday's meeting with the Jaguars, they've erased the off-the-charts excitement that was so prevalent after their 3-0 start.
Now they're stuck at .500 and aware of the windy road that lies ahead.
"There's only two ways the season can go: be mediocre or be great," linebacker Calvin Pace said. "It's been done before. I think the New York Giants a couple of years ago built a model for it. This ideally isn't the situation that you want to be in. But you can still make amends. Obviously, we need some help from a couple of people. But to be honest, we just have to do what we can do. We really control our own fate.
"We've seen last year, you don't want to be in a situation where you are counting on somebody else to lose."
Because they're 1-3 in the AFC East and can't finish any better than 3-3 in the division, the Jets already are in dire need of help to catch the Patriots, whom they play a week from Sunday. Although it's still early and their best shot might be a wild-card berth, don't think Ryan hasn't peeked at the standings.
"I could sit back and say, 'Well, we're not even close to being focused on anybody else,' " he said. "But I know where we're at. I know New England is on top of us. We've got to go through them to win our division. That's obvious. We can't go through Miami because they beat us twice."
Still, Richardson isn't ready to hear all the playoff talk yet and doesn't want to decipher the potential postseason scenarios. As far as he's concerned, there will be plenty of time for that.
Or so he hopes.
"That seems like a million years away," Richardson said. "The biggest thing is we need to win one game and then at the end of the year, you stack them up and add them all up, and hopefully, that will be enough to get in. But right now, we've just got to find a way to beat Jacksonville."
