Saleh Should Make Sure To Look In Mirror To Find All Culprits In Latest Jets Loss
There are plenty of football coaches who espouse the theory that every offensive possession should end in a kick.
Idiots—all of them.
Jets Head Coach Robert Saleh thought he could play a field position game when the Dolphins invaded MetLife Stadium on Sunday, but all his safe calls did was ensure that Miami would escape with a 24-17 victory.
Ironically, the one time Saleh rolled the dice—going for it on a 4th-and-goal from the 2-yard line in the first quarter—paid dividends as Joe Flacco, who leapfrogged the less experienced Mike White, who had stepped in for injured rookie Zach Wilson, as the Jets’ starting quarterback for this week, found wide receiver Jamison Crowder in the end zone to knot the score at 7-7.
Thereafter, the Jets had five consecutive possessions that put them in plus territory, with all but the one given away by a Flacco strip-sack fumble ending in a kick.
They got zero points out of those possessions.
Kicker Matt Ammendola doinked one off the left upright on a 55-yard field goal attempt with 1:10 remaining in the first half and then hooked another one left in the third quarter from 40 yards out. The Jets kicking job posting will be going out in 3, 2 ….
At least that latter kick was the correct decision according to win probability models, as was an earlier 4th-and-11 punt from the Dolphins 49-yard line.
In between those two miskicks, though, Saleh had Ammendola line up for a 56-yard try on a 4th-and-7 from the Miami 38-yard line. Saleh then changed his mind and signaled to his field goal unit that they shouldn’t snap the ball and instead take the delay-of-game penalty to give punter Braden Mann more room. At least the Jets didn’t burn a timeout during that sequence—over the course of the game, they wasted THREE of them because they didn’t get the play call in on time. Never mind that the two second-half timeouts used had more value than the five yards that would have been lost in taking the penalty.
But why not just straight go for it? Why so eager to give the ball back? The extra 33 yards of field position mattered so much that it took Miami quarterback Tua Tagovailoa a whole three plays to get it back--and then he hit a wide-open Mack Hollins on a 65-yard touchdown bomb to give his team a 14-7 lead.
It was a huge swing in the game. Remember, it’s not like the Jets (2-8) had any reason to play scared because they’d lose out on something meaningful down the line. More importantly, at least half of their defense consists of low-round or undrafted players who wouldn’t be starting on virtually every other NFL team.
This is who Saleh entrusted the game to?
The Dolphins, who entered the game ranked 28th in points and 29th in yards per game, rolled up 388 yards of total offense, which doesn’t include the killer Jets defensive penalties that extended key fourth quarter drives. Tagovailoa, the 26th-rated QB among the 33 in the league with at least 150 dropbacks, per ProFootballFocus.com, had open receivers everywhere, none more so than the one to Hollins where the Jets (probably undrafted rookie cornerback Isaiah Dunn) botched a coverage. On the day, Tagovailoa completed 27-of-33 passes for 273 yards with two touchdowns and an interception.
When the Jets desperately needed a stop in the fourth quarter, the Dolphins embarked on a 14-play drive that culminated in a chip-shot field goal to put Miami up two scores with just 1:57 remaining in the game. A late Ammendola field goal wasn’t enough for him to make amends.
While Saleh can’t kick the football for Ammendola, get open downfield on pass routes, or make tackles, he was in a position to make a positive contribution inside the game. Some of his fourth-down decisions to kick in lieu of going for it on fourth down frittered away his team’s expected win percentage points.
After the game, Saleh bemoaned that “90% of games in this league are lost, not won, and this one was lost.” He got that right, so long as he looks in the mirror to make sure he implicates every culprit.