Ah, finally, the speculation about which team Favre will play for in 2008 is over. Now for the next month we’ll be overwhelmed by analysis of the situation, all the angles. For this site, however, the move doesn’t change a single thing.

I know you’re thinking, “How can this idiot say that adding a future Hall of Fame quarterback isn’t going to change anything?”. Just remember that Bull VS Bear promotes technical analysis, and at this point we only look at team, division, and conference levels. Players just don’t matter to me even if they are future HOF’ers. The Jets projection of a 2-14 season is a product of RSI analysis, the art of measuring momentum from year to year. This is a Jets team that won four games in 2007 in a division that really wasn’t that bad (only the Patriots were that far ahead of the rest of the division). The Jets’ RSI going into 2008 is 58, and when a team crosses 55 they generally begin to decline back towards 45. The only way the Jets are going to hold steady or decline is if they win two games. That prediction made a lot more sense back when Clemens and Pennington were going to be the starting QBs…now that Favre is in play, one would surely expect New York to win a few more than four games. Football Outsiders put out some numbers this morning that show (although the sample size is rather small) that veteran QBs from good offensive teams improve the teams that they go to the following year…RSI says that New York will lose two more games than they did in 2007.

I’ll say this though - some teams do push past that RSI value of 55, but it’s tough to do and it hardly ever happens. Examination of seasonal WTM trends shows that the Jets seemed to hit bottom in 2007 and will begin climbing back up towards .500 in 2008. While I do use RSI to make my predictions, I certainly can’t argue with the fact that this team should see some improvement in their Highs, Lows, and Closes. That doesn’t necessarily equate to more wins, but at least they’ll be in a better position to win close games. That may be the biggest factor in their 2008 season. Brett Favre’s veteran wisdom and experience might get the Jets a few more of those elusive 1-3 point victories. What we can expect then would be a regression in 2009 due to overperformance in 2008.

I think the one thing I can state without a doubt is that New York will NOT be a Super Bowl contender in 2008, even with Favre behind center. I’m going to stand by RSI and say that their estimate is for two wins, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see an overachieving Jets team win 4-6 games and then crash in 2009.