I'm a little embarrassed to admit I'd actually gone to sleep on the possibility of any team but the Titans winning the AFC South. Less than a month ago the Titans were 7-3 and the Jaguars were 3-7. But here we are, and it now looks like a near-certainty that Jacksonville will be hosting the Ravens or Dolphins in Week 19. Crazy stuff.

The Jets, meanwhile, have gone from 7-4 to 7-8 and they're probably headed for 7-10. Gee, I wonder who the fans will blame? We know the primary culprit, but I'll preface the rest of this article by taking the Kirk Herbstreit approach of pointing out that there's lots of blame to go around.

QUARTERBACKS:

I'm not going to pile on Zach Wilson. It's obvious watching him that his confidence is shot, his mechanics are broken, and benching him for Mike White was the right call -- Robert Saleh should never, ever have gone back to him. Last night he should have been yanked before halftime (at the latest). Players get better, and maybe he lands with a team or a coaching staff that fixes him. But if I had him in a dynasty league right now I would cut him. He cannot play.

Expanding on this though, the Jets last night in the first half called 17 pass plays and 4 runs. On a windy, rainy night against a Jacksonville defense that had given up an average of 142 rushing yards in its last five games coming in. What was the thinking, there, Coach Saleh? Get your quarterback some confidence against a bad pass defense, I suppose? So you put him in the shotgun for a majority of the night and have him slinging it around in lousy conditions while not letting your impressive-looking young running back do anything? Anyway, Saleh eventually switched to gadget quarterback Chris Streveler, who also came in for a play in the first half (the entire offensive line false-started on that play, that was fun). Streveler looked comparatively like an NFL quarterback, but the game was essentially over and I don't think there's much chance Streveler starts the next game; either it will be White or Joe Flacco (though the fact that Flacco hasn't been used with White hurt is pretty damning).

Trevor Lawrence has had an awesome month. Pinpoint throws, judicious runs, moving the offense up and down the field. The Dallas defense has slipped and the other defenses he's lit up lately are weak against the pass. But there's no denying the guy looks like a star. Yeah, he threw for only 229 yards without any touchdowns last night. But that's a really good Jets pass defense, and with his 51 rushing yards and a score he got you probably more against that opponent in those lousy conditions than you were expecting. He'll be starting a playoff game a few weeks from now, and it looks like he'll be starting a bunch of them over the next decade.

RUNNING BACKS:

Pretty good game for Travis Etienne. Rushed for 83 yards, caught 3 passes. Scary moment early when he went down in a heap and they were checking him out on the sidelines, but he returned and was fine, to the relief of those who started him. Didn't score, but was very close -- tripped up on a good defensive play near the goal line, right before Lawrence leaped over the pile for the touchdown. Etienne and the Jaguars are at Houston next week, and I can tell you right now he'll be a top-10 back in our rankings, at least.

Zonovan Knight rushed for negative yards. He carried 3 times for 0 yards in the first half. Anyone who says they gave Knight and the running game a chance and it struggled so they abandoned it is fooling themselves. The Jets spent most of the first half in the shotgun. I wasn't even starting Knight anywhere but it just makes me angry. I'd love to know what Saleh's thinking was. Nothing the team did made sense. The Jets are at Seattle next week, the Seahawks can't stop the run, logically Knight will be ranked favorably. But you have to counter that by the painful awareness that New York might not do anything sensible offensively. Michael Carter caught all 5 passes thrown his way last night, but I don't think anyone could have reasonably started Carter.

WIDE RECEIVERS AND TIGHT ENDS:

So we had Christian Kirk, Zay Jones and Garrett Wilson all ranked in the top 40, making them starters in typical 12-team leagues, but not great ones. And they weren't even that good, for a variety of reasons. Weather was certainly a factor; wind and rain. But things didn't actually look that bad in the first half, it was the second half where things really deteriorated. Somebody asked me how much I factor weather in. High winds, I place a lot of stock in, and will be in Cleveland and Chicago this weekend. Rain can be manageable. It looked OK for at least the first half last night.

Instead, Wilson flopped because Zach Wilson was sailing passes way over his head or at his feet or off into the seats. The Jaguars wideouts flopped primarily because the Jets decided to overlook Evan Engram -- teams watch film and examine stats sheets on opponents, right? I realize it was a short week, but Engram came in having caught 24 passes for 252 yards and 3 TDs in his previous three games, you might want to put a body on him -- and let him look like Travis Kelce or a young Tony Gonzalez. Why throw to a Jones or Kirk when Engram is a human vacuum cleaner in the middle of the field. I drafted Engram in a couple of leagues this year. It would have been nice if they'd featured him in time to save one of those teams, but whatever, better late than never.

The Jets were featuring Tyler Conklin early, featuring as much as you can feature anyone while completing only 7 first-half passes. Arguably they should have thrown more his way, he's the only receiver Wilson showed any kind of rapport with.

MISCELLANOUS:

So I think Robert Saleh deserves some credit for stepping into the mess that the Jets were when he showed up and getting them to a point where they were actually playoff contenders this year. The defense is good, at times great, with a couple of legit stars.

But they've butchered the Zach Wilson pick in about every way you can butcher it, not only failing to develop him but arguably making him worse -- mechanics, confidence -- and bizarrely putting more of the offense on his shoulders since his return to the lineup, rather than less. I'm not excusing Wilson, who by all accounts is immature and not loved by teammates. But when young quarterbacks flop, the coaching staff deserves a healthy share of the blame. If New York selects another quarterback early, does anyone have any confidence they'll develop him properly? Quarterbacks drafted by New York in the first two rounds the last dozen years: Wilson, Darnold, Christian Hackenberg, Geno Smith, Mark Sanchez. Yikes.