The Jets lost to the Bengals 27-12 on Sunday at MetLife Stadium to drop to 1-2 this season. Here are some thoughts and observations from the game:
1. The Jets have held a lead for all of 22 seconds this season. That would be the 22 seconds at the end of the Browns game when they pulled off the miraculous comeback. That’s it. Twenty-two seconds.
The Jets continually have to play from behind and it is one of the chief culprits in why they are struggling. It makes the offense more pass-happy and the defense is not able to rush the passer as freely. The Jets have almost 100 more passing attempts than rushes – 156 passes to 57 rushing attempts. If you add in the nine times Joe Flacco has been sacked and the three times he has run the ball (we’re guessing they were not designed runs), that means the Jets have had 168 drop-backs and 54 called runs.
That is some awful balance. But offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur and head coach Robert Saleh will tell you that is largely because they have been trailing so much. I do think the Jets could stay with the run longer. A 14-point deficit in the second quarter should not make you throw out the entire game plan, but the fact that the Jets are constantly playing from behind is a major issue.
Consider this: the Jets have trailed in every game since Saleh became the head coach. You have to go back to the stunning Rams victory in 2020 at the end of the Adam Gase era to find a game where the Jets led the entire way. It is a streak of 22 games.
That is a hard way to live in the NFL.
A huge problem in the first half of last season was slow starts. This season it has been slow starts and slow finishes outside of the Browns game.
The Jets defense also is affected by playing from behind. When you are ahead late in the game, you know a team is throwing and now the pass rush can let loose and you can get to the quarterback. The Jets defense almost never has that luxury. The Bengals ran the ball over and over again in the fourth quarter on Sunday.
The Jets need to play from ahead one of these days and stop putting themselves in a hole week after week.
2. Let me take you way back to the days of August when the temperatures were high, school was out and beat writers like me were telling you how great the Jets tight ends were going to be.
Whoops.
Now that the temperatures are down and school is in, we can see the Jets tight ends are not what they were cracked up to be. Tyler Conklin has put up some stats (18 catches, 140 yards, one TD) but he has had some fumbles and drops that overshadow his production. C.J. Uzomah has been invisible in the two games he has played. He had one catch Sunday after missing last week with a hamstring injury. Rookie Jeremy Ruckert has yet to record a catch and did not even get a snap on offense Sunday.
It has been shocking because the Jets invested so heavily in the position in the offseason. The Jets signed Uzomah to a three-year, $24 million deal and he was coming off a highly productive season with the Bengals in 2021, catching 49 passes for 493 yards and five touchdowns. He has one target so far. Conklin received a three-year, $21 million contract. Conklin has definitely been more involved than Uzomah or Ruckert but the Jets have not used them together as much as I expected. Ruckert, a third-round pick out of Ohio State, has been playing catch-up since missing the spring due to a foot injury. He had a drop in Cleveland and it is clear the Jets coaches don’t fully trust him yet.
We expected a huge role for the tight ends. So far, that has not happened yet, which feels familiar when watching the Jets.
3. I have debated this with a few Jets coaches: When players commit dumb penalties, is that a reflection of an undisciplined, poorly coached team or is it totally on the players? You can guess which side coaches almost land on. They don’t believe it is on coaching. I have thought it was on coaches in the past but I’m starting to come around to the other side.
These dumb penalties happen year after year, game after game, no matter who is coaching the Jets. Every Jets coach can’t be this bad at instilling discipline, can they?
On Sunday, the unnecessary roughness penalty on John Franklin-Myers was an absolute killer. The Jets were gaining some momentum. They were down 7-6 and had forced a turnover on the previous series. Now, they stopped the Bengals on third-and-9 and were going to get the ball back with a chance to take a lead. Instead, Franklin-Myers shoved Joe Burrow to the ground and fell on him and the flag flew. The Bengals got new life and Burrow found Tyler Boyd for the 56-yard touchdown.
Corey Davis’ penalty late in the game for getting into it with Eli Apple killed a drive where the Jets could have cut it to a one-score game.
The Jets have talked about being a young team, but their veterans are killing them. These penalties were inexcusable and you learn that in Pee Wee football. NFL coaches should be able to count on professional football players knowing better.
4. This got obscured by the sideline blowup, but Quinnen Williams had a great game on Sunday. Williams had four tackles, a sack and three quarterback hits. Williams was difficult to block and really dominated the middle of the Bengals line. His sideline argument with defensive line coach Aaron Whitecotton got most of the attention, but Williams played well and this could be a sign of things to come for him this season.
Revealing stat
Joe Flacco had 52 pass attempts on Sunday and was sacked four times, so that is 56 drop-backs. This is the second time this season that Flacco has dropped back more than 50 times. That is not what you want from a 37-year-old backup quarterback. The Jets offense needs a lot of fixing.
Surprising snap count
C.J. Uzomah had only 27 snaps (out of 78) against his former team. The marginalization of Uzomah is one of the early-season mysteries with this team.
Game ball
Rookie CB Sauce Gardner played well in his matchup with Ja’Marr Chase on Sunday. He had two pass breakups and was never beat cleanly for any big plays. He was involved in the mix-up that led to the Chase wide-open touchdown but I don’t think Gardner is the one who messed up there.