Jets Ravenized !

Coming off the embarrassing loss to the Raiders, I had high hopes to play one of the better teams in the league, the Baltimore Ravens.

This was Rex Ryan’s old team who beat us on opening day last year by just a single point. I was hoping that this team would seek revenge from last years’ loss. I was hoping that the defense would be pissed off from their lack of defense against the Raiders the prior week. I was hoping that the offense would get into some rhythm. I was hoping that we could get a victory and come out of the first quarter of the season with a winning record.

All that hope. All that promise. And all we got was loss that could spiral this team out of control. Actually, I did get something out of that loss. I got a lot of question marks.

With all this anger and disgust that has built up, I’m not quite sure where to even begin.

First off, I can’t stand Rex Ryan deferring all the time when we win the coin toss. Has he not learned his lesson? This is an offensive league right now. The Ravens didn’t score on that first drive but they did manage to drive the ball putting us in poor field position only to turn over the ball immediately. But, in the Steelers playoff game, look what happened when we deferred. And look what happened last week against the Raiders when we finally took the ball; we scored. It feels like every time we defer, the Jets are on their heels either giving up a long drive or a score. Wouldn’t it be nice to not play from behind from the start of a game? This defense is NOT as good as Rex thinks so come on man, let’s take the ball when we win the toss and try and score.

The offensive line is a total disaster. The collapse started two years ago when we released Alan Fanaca and continued in the off-season when Damien Woody retired. We basically have three competent offensive linemen in Nick Mangold, D’Brickshaw Fergueson, and Brandon Moore. That is terrible is that Mangold is still unable to play due to his high ankle sprain. And, to make matters worse, Patrick Turner is out as well. So, that leaves three open spots between Matt Slauson, Colin Baxter, Wayne Hunter, and Vlad Ducasse. Of this group, only Slauson is capable of playing and it all showed last night. There’s a reason that Colin Baxter was not on a roster a few weeks ago? The chemistry between him and Sanchez is hurting. The snap from center is just not going smoothly. The penalities between Hunter and Baxter are way too many. The pass protection of this group is non-existant. And, they can’t block a hole for the running game at all. If Sanchez wasn’t under pressure, he was either getting sacked or hammered. The Jets are lucky he is still alive after the beating he was taking. Sanchez did make a bad pass for an interception but the other fumbles and/or mishaps were all due to the offensive line. This offense won’t get any better if you have 2 seconds to throw and can’t run for more than a yard. And 38 total yards on the ground is an embarrassment, especially for a ground and pound team!

If you take away three non-offensive touchdowns, the defense didn’t look as bad as the score. The really gave up just 13 points and some of them were due to good field position caused by the poor offense. I’d like some more pass rush and some better tackling against the run but this unit will be fine over the course of the season. Hats off to Maybin for having a great game in his first week back as a Jet.

You have to like the job of Joe McKnight returning kickoffs. We better not see Cromartie back there again. He needs to focus on coverage and less penalities. I think we finally have our kickoff returner.

The Jets now head to New England. Luckily, New England’s defense is not as good as the Ravens. We need to somehow give Sanchez more time to throw and get some momentum on offense or it could be a long afternoon. I’m too disgusted to write much more on last nights’ fiasco as I don’t have any barf bags nearby.

FEW NOTES:

The 51 combined points by the Jets and Ravens are the most in NFL history in a game in which there was only 1 offensive TD. The previous record was 43 in a game in which the Chiefs beat the Steelers 24-19 in 1986.

From Elias: Jets and Ravens have combined for 4 defensive touchdowns on Sunday night. That ties the NFL record for most combined defensive touchdowns in a single game, done many times. The most recent instance (before Sunday) was October 19, 1986 in a Chargers-Chiefs game.

Joe McKnight ran back a kick return 107 yards for a touchdown. It was the longest play in Jets' history and the longest surrendered by the Ravens.

Maybin notched his first career sack in the third quarter and forced a fumble by Flacco.

Mark Sanchez had all three of his turnovers (two fumbles, one interception) returned for TDs by the Ravens defense.