Jets need to respond with statement Week 2 win before things get ugly

Does the season end with a loss? 

It does not. 

As a Jets fan, you know this. You know that a few of the more satisfying seasons in Jets history started off slowly. You recall 1981, which started 0-3 before the Sack Exchange flexed its muscles and ultimately delivered the first playoff berth after a 12-year drought. You recall 1998, which started 0-2 including — for disciples of symmetry — an opening-week loss in San Francisco, and ended in the AFC Championship game. 

You might even recall 2002, which began with a win but then descended into hell, 1-4 and 2-5, before Chad Pennington fell out of the sky and before long was beating Peyton Manning in a playoff game — a home playoff game, the last one the Jets have ever participated in — 41-0. 

So yes, the Jets can lose at Tennessee on Sunday — they can fall to 0-2, they can lose to a Titans team that looked positively dreadful last week in Chicago, and to a quarterback, Will Levis, who played so poorly you half expected he was wearing “GSH” on his left sleeve the way Bears players do — and it won’t be the end of the world, or the end of the season. 

It’ll just feel that way.