Jets have nothing to rely on as season’s harsh reality sets in
The day after didn’t feel any better than the day before.
The Jets stayed in Arizona on Sunday night following their 31-6 loss to the Cardinals at State Farm Stadium.
Their plan all along was to fly home Monday afternoon so the players could get a proper night’s rest rather than a fitful red-eye plane ride right after the game.
When the Jets players and coaches woke up Monday morning in Arizona, they faced the sobering reality that they’re 3-7 and effectively out of any chance at a playoff berth and the fact that they don’t do anything particularly well.
In their time of most need, the Jets have nothing on which to rely. No unit, no player, nothing.
They don’t score enough points on offense.
Their 40-year-old quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, looks more his age with each passing game.
Rodgers, we now know, isn’t the savior the franchise banked on him being when they acquired him last year.
He no longer makes the players around him better, as has been a hallmark of his brilliant career. He now needs players around him to help make him better.
Their skill position players, receivers Garrett Wilson and Davante Adams and running back Breece Hall, thought to be among the best group in the league, aren’t keeping any defensive coordinators up at night.
Their defense can’t tackle and, subsequently, cannot get the opposing offenses off the field. Case in point: The Cardinals scored on each of their first five possessions on Sunday and didn’t punt until the fourth quarter.
Their interim head coach, Jeff Ulbrich, is overwhelmed, burdened with too much to do as he’s stretched too thin trying to oversee the entire team and run the defense at the same time.
As a result of Robert Saleh being fired after five games, the defense has suffered.
“Obviously, everyone is pissed,’’ Ulbrich said Monday. “There’s collective anger, frustration, all those things I have not felt. I don’t feel like anyone is wavering or jumping ship at all. I think the character in this locker room is strong. They’re still committed to being together and getting this done together.
“I’ve felt a group that is all-in every day. That elevates the level of frustration and anger and disappointment that we’re all feeling.’’
Jets linebacker Jamien Sherwood on Monday talked about putting these first 10 games behind them, most notably Sunday’s humiliating defeat.
“The game’s behind us now, so it’s about going forward and trying to improve everything that we weren’t good at [Sunday],’’ Sherwood said Monday. “My mindset is just to finish strong, no matter what that record looks like, no matter what the scoreboard looks like.
“You demonstrate your love for the man next to you by the way you finish. Nobody would [have] thought that the season would have went this way when we started this season. So, that’s very upsetting.
“We’ve still got seven games left. I don’t know how anything’s gonna work out in the end, but if we continue to strain and show our effort and fix all these problems that we’ve been having, who knows what it looks like at the end of the year?’’
There are a lot of things to fix if this is going to get better.
The punter, Thomas Morstead, cannot continue to be the team’s most reliable, consistent player. This is not a recipe for success.
The Jets had six takeaways in the five games with Saleh at head coach and have only one in the five games since Ulbrich was given the interim head coaching duties. They have only two INTs this season, both by cornerback Brandin Echols, and they both came when Saleh was still the head coach.
Worst of all, the Jets cannot even carry out one of most basic tenets of defense: Tackling.
They amassed 20 missed tackles against the Cardinals, according to the NFL’s Next Gen Stats.
“An egregious, criminal amount of missed tackles,’’ Ulbrich said Monday. “Not good enough. We need to find ways to drill it better.’’
Ulbrich said he and his coaches “took a deep dive in the waning hours [Sunday] night, really hyperfocused on tackling and how we can improve it.’’
“The first part of tackling is identifying what you’re doing wrong,’’ he said. “Is it leverage? Is it not taking an extra step? Is it not committing to the wrap? Is it not getting your body on him? Is it leaving my feet?
“Whatever it is, and then for each group, identifying what they need to really hyperfocus on and then just being super diligent and on the players as far as our team practice reps of leverage and taking the extra step, and doing all the things we can do without taking a guy to the ground.
“I still think within the season, you can improve it as a tackling defense, and we will.’’
Even though it’s too late to make a difference for a playoff run, it’s never too late.
