Pro Football Focus actually thinks the New York Giants will win more games down the stretch than the New York Jets, a most interesting talking point to say the least. Especially in light of this past weekend.
Pro Football Focus released their projections for the second half of the season for all 32 NFL teams last week, just in time for the unrolling of Week 9. The projections, posted earlier this week, didn’t include the Jets win over the Buffalo Bills on Thursday night, lifting their record to 4-5. They also didn’t, of course, include Sunday’s blowout loss at home by the Giants to the Los Angeles Rams.
As such, both the Jets and Giants (1-6 heading into this weekend and now 1-7 after losing to the Rams) are not projected by the analytics site to reach .500 let alone the playoffs.
The projections for the Jets (who at the time PFF ran their analytics had a 3-5 record, obviously not including their win over the Bills) is that they will match their first-half production and get six wins (PFF has the win total technically at 5.9 wins).
A 6-10 record that, coincidentally, would have baffled most pundits in the preseason.
The site notes that a 6-10 projected record “might not do the season they have had justice if they continue to play unexpectedly well in the second half of the season and yet continue to lose close games.”
The intriguing part is that the Giants, with just a single win to date, are also in-line for six wins according to PFF. The site notes that the Giants have the second easiest remaining schedule in the league. This of course was done before the Giants got blown out this past week.
Did we already mention that?
Pro Football Focus writes that despite their abysmal start to the year “the analytics actually likes a lot of their play, from their powerful secondary to the improved play of [quarterback] Eli Manning. With one of the easiest schedules in the league over the final eight games, the projection is for the Giants to go on something of a run of wins.”
