lol, common sense is pretty tough. Here i will try to dumb it down for you. Miami and NYJ are in the same division. If miami has 11 wins already and NYJ only have 9, then the jets can't win the division and will miss the playoffs. If miami doesn't have a good team, then they couldn't take the playoff spot from them.
Apparently you're the one that needs it dumbed down.
Suppose NYJ traded Pennington to CHI, instead of releasing him for MIA to pick up. MIA then goes 4-11 (or something similar) through week 16, and is completely out of the playoff picture. What is the result?
- NYJ still beats MIA in week 1, so no change here (maybe a change to Sunday's outcome)
- NYJ
still loses all those other games and is still 9-6
- NE is still 10-5 (actually, probably 11-4 because they likely beat MIA twice*)
- BAL is still 10-5 (they still beat MIA) and has locked NYJ out of the wild card
So in your fantasy world, not giving Pennington to MIA has radically changed the scenario from:
NYJ needs a win against MIA in week 17, plus a NE loss against BUF
to
NYJ needs a win against MIA in week 17, plus a NE loss against BUF!
OH MY GOD WHAT A DIFFERENCE
Here is something that you seem to have a hard time grasping: regardless of MIA's record,
the Jets are still behind New England. Taking Pennington away from MIA, at worst, only replaces MIA-as-division-champ with NE-as-division-champ.
*the real irony here is that if NYJ does beat MIA and NE loses to BUF, NYJ actually
helped themselves by letting Pennington go to MIA, since a Pennington-less Dolphins probably would have lost twice to NE, which would mean that the division would already be clinched for the Patriots. Not only is your argument wrong, it's the
opposite of reality.
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