Monday’s home loss to the Buffalo Bills carried all the earmarks of the 2024 New York Jets even as a new boss presided over it.
On paper, a coaching change and shift in offensive play-calling seemed like it could jolt a team teetering on the brink yet still only one game out of the AFC East lead.
Then the Jets took the field at MetLife Stadium. Although bright spots emerged, familiar inconsistency and penalties slogged closely behind in a 23-20 defeat that signaled the epitaph to the Jets’ season, in ESPN analyst Troy Aikman’s view.
“I could see this totally unraveling,” Aikman said.
Fans of the J-E-T-S wish those remarks on “SportsCenter” following “Monday Night Football” were delivered in J-E-S-T.
Afraid not.
Wasting what quarterback Aaron Rodgers called a “golden opportunity” in its first game under interim coach Jeff Ulbrich, New York finished 1-for-4 in the red zone with a pair of missed field goals of 32 and 43 yards.
Referees penalized the Jets (2-4) 11 times for 111 yards.
“Some games you win in the NFL and some games you give away,” Rodgers said. “This was a giveaway… We had plenty of chances, had the momentum, had good drives, moved the ball up and down the field. So disappointing.”
Buffalo (4-2) stopped a two-game slide while sending the Jets to their third straight loss. Taron Johnson’s diving interception of a deep Rodgers pass intended for Mike Williams sealed the result in the final two minutes.
Whether the victory also put a stamp on the Bills’ fifth successive division title is likely too soon to tell, but Buffalo remains the only team in the AFC East with a winning record.
Rodgers, who recovered from a poor performance in a narrow loss to Minnesota in London last week, wasn’t wrong after going 23-of-35 through the air for two touchdowns and a season-best 294 yards.
This was a missed opportunity rife with what-ifs in the short- and long-term.
New playcaller Todd Downing devised an attack that revived running back Breece Hall and gained 393 total yards. Owner Woody Johnson, who fired coach Robert Saleh on Oct. 8, called this the best Jets roster in a quarter century.
But the pomp merely led the Jets to an unwanted circumstance. Again.
“To lose the game the way they did with the penalties and the missed field goals and not capitalizing in the red zone, all those things—I just think it’s going to be really hard on them,” Aikman said.
“They didn’t get it done and so they’re right back where they were,” he added. “Now what’s the answer for them? They don’t have any.”
It may seem like a feeble one, but the Jets did offer a response when Ulbrich addressed the media after Monday’s game.
That it translates to a mix of “stay the course” and “be better” surely will frustrate Jets faithful all the more, but in some respects, that sentiment holds water. Even with the apparent tumult leading to the Saleh firing, New York has lost three straight by a combined 10 points.
“We are by no means out of this thing. By no means,” Ulbrich said. “I know the character of that locker room. I know the way we will respond. We have to start stacking these weeks of exceptional preparation I promise you it will start to pay off on Sundays.”
There’s ample time to improve before the Jets get a road rematch with the Bills in Week 17.
Will they have moved past their rehearsed refrain by then?