Jets are 2-7 but the numbers say 4.5-4.5, and the clock work is the gap

The most surprising number in the Jets file is 4.5. That is how many wins the Deserved Standings tool gives New York through Week 9, even though the real record is 2-7. The same read has the Jets .500, which says the problem is how the games end more than how they are played.

0 for 6: the two-minute drill produced nothing

In two-minute situations the Jets have run 6 drives and scored 0 points. Expected points, the average return on drives of that kind, was 6.3. That is more than a touchdown of production missing across the season.

Clock IQ scores head coach Aaron Glenn 24 out of 99, 29th among 32 teams. The Jets burn 0.78 timeouts per game against a league rate of 0.75, so the timeouts are not the main leak. The drives themselves are. An offense that keeps resetting needs these end-of-half drives to cash in, and they have not.

Buffalo will give the Jets a chance to fix this in Week 10, because a team favored by this much tends to be playing with the lead late. Clock IQ

4.5: the wins the Jets have not been given

The deserved record is 4.5 wins and 4.5 losses. The gap to 2-7 is 2.5 wins of bad luck, the tool's luck figure of -2.5. By the real table the Jets rank 12th in the conference. By the deserved table they rank 8th.

That is still not a playoff team. The picture is out of the field on both tables. The point is narrower: the defense and offense together have played closer to even than the standings show, which is a different problem than a team that is simply bad. Deserved Standings

1.5 points: the snaps like New York more than the market does

Through 9 games the market expected the Jets to lose by 2.8 points per game. The snaps-based margin is -1.3. The real margin is -4.6. The snaps read is 1.5 points better than the market read, which makes the Jets the 11th most underrated team by the market among the 32.

The real result is 3.3 points per game worse than what the snaps support. Against the closing spread the Jets are 4-4-1, so the market has not been wrong by much in either direction. The spread is context here, not a pick. Market vs Snaps

2.22 games: what one play has cost in the losses

Sliding Doors adds up the win probability lost to the single most decisive play in each loss. For the Jets that comes to 2.22 games' worth. The single decisive play in their wins has saved only 0.4 games' worth.

Four of the losses were ones a single play could have flipped. That lines up with the deserved record: the Jets have been on the wrong side of the swing plays far more often than the right side.

The Bills visit MetLife Stadium on Sunday, Nov. 15 at 1:00 PM ET on CBS. Buffalo is an 8.5-point favorite with a total of 50.5. The question for the Jets is whether the late-game and swing-play results move toward what the deserved table says. Sliding Doors