Heartbreak To Open New Stadium

It was typical Jets. We were opening a new stadium on Monday Night Football against Rex Ryan’s and Bart Scott’s prior team. It was no longer Giant’s Stadium. The atmosphere was GREEN. And the result was “The Same Ole Jets.”

The fans were going crazy during the announcing of the team’s starting defensive players and went nuts when Revis was announced last. The Jets have one of the Top 5 defenses in the league so you know that they would be in every game.

The game was delayed a half hour due to thunderstorms. It’s too bad they just didn’t cancel the game as it would have given me three hours of my life back. Yes, three more wasted hours watching this team of misfits.

After an inept start to the game by our offensive, the defensive got it going on the first play with Shawn Ellis sacking Flacco and Sione Pouha recovering the ball deep in the Ravens’ end. It looked like the start of good things to come until the offense struggled again to do anything and we had to settle for a 3-0 lead.

Things started to look even better when the Ravens somehow fumbled and there was Pouha to pick up the ball for his second fumble recovery in the first quarter.

Things then got a bit uglier with the Jets having penalty after penalty. In this game, they had 14 penalties for 125 yards with 10 of the penalties for 100 yards coming in the first half. How the hell does this team have all of these penalties? I thought they were a disciplined team? What killed me is that most of the penalties were on 3rd down keeping Raven drives alive.

There was one play which killed me. It was 3rd and 28 and the ball was thrown to the right side of the field. However, on the left side of the field, our rookie Wilson was flagged for holding giving the Ravens an automatic first down. How pathetic is that!

It was it wasn’t Wilson or Cromartie getting beat by Anquan Boldin, it was Wilson or Cromartie getting flagged for another penalty. I know Revis missed most of camp but why wasn’t he covering Boldin on every play? It seemed like it was either Wilson, or Cromartie, or Eric Smith. Revis should have blanked Boldin all game.

So, the Jets have a 6-0 lead and Cromartie picks off a ball deep and runs it back for near 70 yards with the help of a nice Revis block. When it looks like the Jets have all the momentum, Shonn Greene continued his fumbling ways dropping the ball and giving possession right back to the Ravens. Then, it got even uglier with the Ravens driving and having this drive extended twice on third downs with brutal penalties. The first was Braylon Edwards roughing the kicker on a field goal. The second was a holding penalty in the endzone which lead to the Ravens’ only touchdown right before half.

The Jets had some chances earlier. After a turnover, we had a 4th and 1 deep in the Raven’s end and we went for our 2nd field goal. What happened to Rex Ryan’s balls? He should have gone for the one yard and stabbed the dagger in the Ravens’ hearts.

Despite all of the penalties and some poor play from Cromartie and Wilson, the defense still played decently only allowing 10 points and putting some nice pressure on the quarterback. I thought Jason Taylor played a great first game in green and white. The defense held the Ravens to just 49 yards rushing but the story of the game was letting up 20 first downs with many of them being converted from 3rd down penalties by the Jets.

As for the offense, there was no offense. The Jets had only 6 first downs all game, their lowest output since 1976. We were 1 for 11 on third downs. The Jets had just 176 yards of offense with Sanchez passing for just 74 yards. It didn’t help that we dropped the ball a few times including a brutal Shonn Greene drop. But, I don’t blame it all on Sanchez. The play calling stank. We ran when we should have passed. We passed when we should have run. We couldn’t do anything on first down leaving us with 2nd and long. There was zero ground and pound. And the offense barely had the ball, 22 minutes vs. 38 for the Ravens.

Sanchez made one great throw to Keller but that was called back on a penalty. I thought LT did a decent job running the ball going for 62 yards. But the loss of Faneca and Thomas Jones showed as the running game wasn’t quite was it used to be.

And still, at the end of the game, the Jets were only down 1 point and had a chance. Sanchez makes a nice pass to Keller who didn’t even know where he was on the field and stepped out of bounds one yards shy of the first down marker on fourth down…game over !

It was an ugly display highlighted by mistakes, penalties, poor coaching, bad play calling, and it all results in another storybook lowlight for all of us suffering Jets fans.

We are now entering game #2 at home against the New England Patriots who will light us up if we don’t change the way we did things in week #1. The season just started and we are now in a MUST WIN game already.