After being celebrated as the AFC's lead horse for the sixth and final wild-card slot, the New York Jets did it again.
Slipping to 5-5 on the season with Sunday's 37-14 loss to the Buffalo Bills, Gang Green continued its baffling, record-setting Jekyll and Hyde act of alternating wins and losses through the first 10 games of the season.
Last week, we touted Rex Ryan's team as the leader of the sixth-seed hopefuls following New York's inspired win over the New Orleans Saints, but the -- in his words -- "awful" play of rookie passer Geno Smith against Buffalo raises all sorts of questions.
"We're not going to be a playoff team until they say we're in the playoffs," right guard Willie Colon told reporters Sunday, per the New York Daily News. "Right now, we just lost to the (expletive) Buffalo Bills."
New York's inability to take care of business has created a swamp in the AFC. All but three teams in the conference are within one game of the Jets and Miami Dolphins, also notched at .500.
Like Ryan's bunch, every one of these AFC contenders are a maddening carnival of inconsistency. Colon knows it's too early to crown someone -- and we're not going to try -- but here's some advice: Take seriously those teams with legitimacy at the quarterback position. Ignore the rest of the pack.
We recapped every Week 11 game on the latest "Around the League Podcast."
