“He conquers twice who restrains himself in victory.”
- Syrus

And the Jets have been nothing but restrained during this five-game winnings streak, utterly unimpressed with their elevation from a 3-3 also-ran after the loss to Oakland, to being talked about as a legitimate Super Bowl contender after the road back-to-backs over the Patriots and Titans improved them to 8-3.

Those two games behind, the Jets schedule does soften somewhat, starting with Denver Sunday at the Meadowlands, but it’s not a steady dose of the Bengals the rest of the way, either.

But players just don’t seem to be getting full of themselves. Yes, there’s a confidence in the locker room, but that’s where it ends. As Rod Boone, who was nice enough to fill in for me Friday at The Fort and commandeer the blog, quoted Thomas Jones earlier today:

“We’ve got a lot of football left and we’ve got a lot of leadership on this team,” Jones said. “Where we were last year at 4-12 at the end of the season, we are in no place to look ahead, we’re are in no position to look past anybody. We are thankful for the season that we are having so far and we are just going to continue our success and take it one game at a time.”

I asked Kris Jenkins on Wednesday why, after each game during this winning streak, he has uttered the same phrase: “I’m never satisfied.”

“I think what a lot of folks don’t understand is that in this job it doesn’t matter what you do in a season unless you’re the Super Bowl champions and that’s it,” Jenkins said. “You have to be mindful of that. You can do a lot of good things during the season, but if you don’t win, [if] you’re not a champion, it doesn’t matter. You’re going to be as good as your last game. And that’s the reason I say what I say.”

Jenkins also talked about the message he, and other veteran players, have given to the younger players.

“I think the past has shown a lot of good teams let a season go because they started feeling themselves a little bit too much,” Jenkins said. “As veterans, that’s all we are trying to tell the (young players). Just make sure you take every game seriously. Every game gets bigger and bigger so you’re going to have that much more pressure on yourself to go out and perform at this level. That is what we have to be mindful of.”

And so, on players’ minds this week has been the Broncos, who are just brutal on defense and while I know I’ve used this old John McKay line before – “We can’t stop the run or the pass” – it fits for Denver, too.

Look at these numbers for the Denver D:

- Total yards per game: 380.4 (ranked 28th)
- Rushing yards per game: 144.5 (27th)
- Rushing yards per attempt: 4.8 (27th)
- Passing yards per game: 235.9 (25th)
- Sacks: 20 (tied for 22nd)
- Third-down efficiency: 44.6% (28th)
- Points: 27.5 (28th)

* For more on the Broncos, check out this scouting report on thejetsblog.com, courtesy of contributor-in-chief R in CT, whom we only pick on occasionally here. But he always gives an excellent breakdown of each week’s opponent and this week is no different.

Now, the Broncos offense is very good and the Jets’ issues stopping the pass are well documented, so the forecast for water and wind Sunday can only benefit the Jets. But I can’t make predictions based on weather predictions (?), so I’ll anticipate a typically cool late November afternoon. I see some problems against Jay Cutler and his quality stable of receivers, but the Broncos, quite simply, remind me of the Lions on defense.

Hi, Dewayne Robertson. Welcome back to New York.

Jets 34, Broncos 26.

To the rest of the league.

* A 9-7 effort last week left me at 90-82-4 for the season against the number, tied with esteemed NFL columnist Bob Glauber (?), with both of us three games behind Tom Rock. But in the “best bet” department, let’s just say I have a better chance of scoring a date with a member of the Flight Crew than I do hitting a best bet, as last week we dropped to 2-9-1 in that department. But failure is NOT getting back on the horse, so here are this week’s picks, with the best bet in CAPS:

Giants, Vikings, Packers, COLTS, Texans, Bills, Rams, Chargers, Patriots, Bucs, Bengals, Chiefs.

* An Interjection Part I: I know this will come off unintentionally coarse and I don’t mean to sound cold to some of my colleagues. But I really, really don’t care about your fantasy team.

* An Interjection Part II: Having previously been Newsday’s college football writer, I’m still on various mailing lists, and this pamphlet arrived today from the Football Bowl Association: “College Bowl Games…Where Everybody Wins.”

In the pamphlet – aided by the deep thinkers who run college football – the group pushes the notion that the current bowl system is just wonderful and, gee whiz, there were 34 champions last year! Everyone plays! Everyone’s a winner! The literature, of course, contains various maddening quotes and the long-told and sold lie that “the regular season is the playoff.”

For the last (not really) time: if the regular season is the playoff, then why isn’t anyone talking about some combination of Ball State/Utah/ Boise State in the title game? When the many BCS defenders – and that includes an embarrassing number in the media – can answer that, then I’ll buy the “regular season is the playoff” stuff. When the argument is about which one-loss teams is most deserving of a spot in the championship game, then the regular season, by definition, can’t be a considered a playoff. So stop.

Now, to Saturday’s picks.

* Last week was my best weekend of the year with the college selections and we’ll start with my favorite line of the weekend: 32 for USC over Notre Dame, which has to have Irish fans – at least this year – regretting that Mrs. Rockne talked her husband into agreeing to the home-and-home thing starting in 1926. Now, it would be easy to take potshots at the Irish but we try not to do cheap shots here and, let’s be honest, college football is more interesting when Notre Dame is good. But Notre Dame isn’t good, decent or average this season. All those Top 10 recruiting classes I’ve been reading about the last decade has to kick in any year now and maybe it will be Saturday. The USC defense is a machine and while I see it being bad, I just don’t see it that bad. It might just myself and Lou Holtz on this but…the pick: Notre Dame (but just to cover. Lou will actually pick the Irish to win).

For the others, I’m not a believer that Florida State is anywhere close to being what it once was, but a blowout road victory at Maryland tells me they can keep it close (or closer than the big spread) against loaded Florida at home. And in the game of the weekend, at least of ranked teams, I’m going with Oklahoma to win – big enough – on the road, at Oklahoma State.

And with that, we adjourn until Sunday afternoon at the Meadowlands.

From E-Boland & Gang Green. Please read the complete article and let us know what you think below.