The Jets won 3 games against bad teams and then faced 2 teams that had no desire to win.
The Brady excuse is exaggerated greatly. Each AFCE team only play the Pats 2 times a year. Prior to the 2008 season, Brady and the Pats have only swept the Dolphins 1 time in 2003. They usually split, and 2008 without Brady was no different. The 2008 Pats without Brady were just as good as the 2009 Pats with a Brady coming off of a knee injury. They only won 10 games in 09 and got trounced in the playoffs to a 9-7 Bal team.
Both the Dolphins 08 schedule and the Jets 09 schedule were pretty easy. The difference is the Dolphins only lost 5 games, and all to pretty good teams.
Not only did the Jets lose 6 of 7 at one point, they lost to several bad teams unlike the Dolphins. You can use the weak schedule excuse, but you ahve to apply it to the Jets as well. They beat teams like Car 8-8, Buff 6-10, Oak 5-11, and the Bucs 3-13. Their 2 best wins were against NE 10-6, and Hou 9-7 which were the first 2 games of the season. With the playoffs on the line, they couldn't even beat Atl at home. The only reason they made it in was because the last 2 teams on the schedule had no interest in winning. That is very different than playing bad teams that are trying their hardest to win the games.