Jets Flop

Depressed. Disgusted. Disappointed. Those are three D’s I got right now. That’s a lot more D than the Jets had last night in the first half.

Championship Games don’t come around often. There was well over a decade wait between the Mud Bowl and the Debacle in Denver. Then, we had to wait over a decade again for the collapse against the Colts.

So, defying the law of averages, we didn’t have to wait over a decade; the Jets were back in the AFC Championship and for their 3rd AFC Championship Game, they only played thirty minutes of football.

This one was much different. The Jets were winning against the Broncos and the Colts and fell apart in the second half. This time, they didn’t play at all in the first quarter until that last drive to get three points on the board.’

This game as a disaster from the start letting the Steelers run right down the field for an almost 10 minute, 18 play drive, resulting in a touchdown. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. They were running like the Jets didn’t even exist. The running defense has been one of the strong parts of the team and the way we were manhandled was shocking. Things were looking as bad as the Monday Night Massacre in New England a few weeks ago.

One of the big issues I had was deferring and giving the ball to the Steelers. That was basically a message saying that we want the ball to start the second half because we are going to be playing from behind and want the ball later rather than now. Why would you give the opposition the ball first when on the road in a hostile environment? You take the ball Rex.

I’m not going to blame Sanchez on this loss. Yeah, he fumbled the ball on a questionable call to give them more points in the first half but this guy was standing back there to try and make things happen offensively when the defense wasn’t holding up their end of the bargain.

The Eric Smith personal foul for 15 yards was a complete joke on 3rd down. The officials are protecting players way too much. How is Eric Smith supposed to know that the ball wasn’t caught. He was trying to hit a receiver to jolt the ball loose and not looking whether the ball was caught or not. That was a bad call.

I also hate the NFL rule of not being able to touch the punter. We came so close to blocking a punt and grazed their punter’s foot. Come on. That shouldn’t be a penalty. That’s like the same as a turnover. Maybe, if anything, it could be a five yard penalty, but to call a personal foul for a play like that? That needs to be addressed by the league. This is tackle football; not two-hand touch.

Brian Schottenheimer needs to take a lot of credit for this loss. We started the first drive with Santonio Holmes on the bench. Wasn’t this the old Steelers’ Super Bowl MVP who was probably the hungriest person on the Jets and to have him on the sideline is not where you want him.

While staging our comeback at the end of the third quarter and into the fourth, the Jets staged a nice long drive and got to the 1 yard line. First of all, there was no sense of urgency when you need to get the ball back. Second, the play calling from the 1 yard line was terrible. Yeah, I heard that there was microphone issues in the headset of Sanchez but that still doesn’t affect how bad some of the calls were. A rushed bad throw to Keller. A throw that went into the opposition’s chest that should have been intercepted. A run by LT up the middle into a pile. It was a nice long drive that resulted in zero points. I know we got a safety on the next set of downs when they fumbled in the end-zone but they we lost the field position and lost out on 5 points (the difference between a touchdown and a safety.) But, too many running plays and way too long of a drive knowing we need to get the ball back again. Didn’t we know that we needed to speed things up and score fast!

The Defense woke up for the second half until the Steelers final drive. We needed to stop them and gave up two first downs. Game over. With the game on the line and a stop needed to get the ball back for a chance for the miracle comeback, the defense let us down.

Dumb penalties, dropped balls, bad play calling, poor clock management, dropped interceptions, cost us dearly. The only thing that wasn’t dropped on Sunday was the booger that Mark Sanchez smeared on Mark Brunell’s jacket. Besides that, we dropped an opportunity at greatness. We lost another opportunity to make it the Super Bowl. Rex told us we were going to win the Super Bowl. After all of these magical comebacks during the year and the way we won our first two playoff games, I believed him. When Big Ben put his knee down one final time, it was over. The dreams had vanished. Depression, disgust, and disappointment set in.

It’s not easy to win in Pittsburgh. It’s not easy to get to two AFC Championship games in a row. It’s probably even harder to get there three in a row. It all shouldn’t have mattered if the Jets played a full 60 minutes.

Next year, Sanchez enters year three. The team could be quite different. I do feel good that I think we have a quarterback that should help us compete for the next several years. But, I don’t want to just compete. I want to finally see this team win it all. It’s been 42 long years. Maybe after this long, the route to the Super Bowl is not meant to be done via the road. Maybe this team can have another magical regular season; a season that gets us the home game for the AFC Championship because playing this game four times on the road has brought nothing but frustration and second guessing.

Now there will be changes if there is even an NFL season with the looming lockout. We have four players to resign and not enough money to sign all four – Cromartie, Harris, Edwards, and Holmes. LT and Jason Taylor are a year older. You know Vernon Gholston will be gone. Will Kris Jenkins and Jim Leonhard make it back from injury? Will Kyle Wilson make it into the starting lineup? Who knows. It just takes one mistake. It just takes one injury. It just takes one bad play to make a promising season go right down the toilet. Maybe one day this dream will be a reality; however, right now, it’s a nightmare.