Sorry CBS, But The Jets Crash In Opener Was Utterly Foreseeable
With Jets fans streaming to the exits of MetLife Stadium to get away from the miserable rain and the miserable football on the field during the fourth quarter of Sunday’s desultory 24-9 defeat to the Ravens, CBS play-by-play announcer Andrew Catalon remarked how it was shame, because there was “so much optimism” about Gang Green’s potential for the 2022 season after all the so-called offseason talent infusions.
Really? Optimism? About the Jets? From whom? Certainly not from all of the analysts in the media and Las Vegas who projected New York to sport one of the lowest win totals in the league this season.
As I mentioned in my last post, you’d have to be drinking a special kind of Kool-Aid to be high on the Jets’ expectations this season. Those of us who have endured the pain from witnessing the past 11 seasons with just one campaign where New York came within a whiff of earning a playoff berth knew better.
They knew that until this franchise hits on its coach/quarterback combo, it is a lost cause.
It’s probably an insult to use the word on the anniversary of 9/11, but the Jets defense played rather heroically in the first half, limiting Baltimore, starring electric quarterback Lamar Jackson, to 92 total yards of offense. Gang Green was flying around the field, sticking to Ravens receivers and delivering big hits
And yet New York still entered the locker room down 10-3 at the break.
That’s because the offense, led by 37-year old QB Joe Flacco due to the knee injury to sophomore Zach Wilson, couldn’t block, separate from coverage or hold onto the ball. In addition, the defensively-oriented Saleh showed his true colors when, with two minutes to go in the half and the Jets in Ravens territory, he clearly was more concerned about giving Jackson the ball back and played for a field goal instead of aggressively going for six points. Saleh got what he wanted—a 45-yard Greg Zuerlein boot with 28 seconds remaining in the half—even after Ravens coach John Harbaugh dared him to go bigger by calling timeouts.
Of course, that was as close as New York would get, because even though they had one second-half possession where they had an opportunity to at least tie the score—a situation that took them four games to get to last season—a comedy of errors ensued to put the affair out of their reach to extend their record-tying September losing streak to 13 games.
It took a shanked Braden Mann punt, a blown coverage on a 55-yard Jackson bomb to wide receiver Rashod Bateman (splitting both of the spectating Jets deep safeties Jordan Whitehead and Lamarcus Joyner), a fumble by Jets rookie running back Breece Hall in the red zone, and an egregious drop of a sure touchdown pass to running back Michael Carter on a fourth down for the Jets fans in attendance to scream, “No mas!”
Saleh was correct in his postgame assessment that Flacco had little help, but this is the risk you run with an aging, immobile QB. You can’t keep putting him in obvious passing situations where the rush can tee off and expect positive results like a high third-down efficiency (the Jets converted their first one with nine minutes remaining in the game). With the Jets o-line leaking both up the middle and around the edges (Monday morning’s ProFootballFocus.com pass blocking grades are going to be UGLY), Baltimore was credited with 11 QB hits along with three sacks of the former Raven who piloted them to a Super Bowl victory in 2013.
It seemed like a massive undercount. Sure, Flacco dropped back an inordinately high 63 times on Sunday, but the vast majority of them were on third-and-longs and when the Jets were down multiple scores. In the closely-contested first half, New York had 17 first-and-ten snaps—Offensive Coordinator Mike LaFleur called for handoffs on nine of them, including four of the first five.
I won’t have the full breakdown until later in the week, so I don’t know the exact Jets usage of 13 personnel (one running back and three tight ends), but it seemed like more than a handful. The extra snaps in the heavier packages typically came at the expense of Garrett Wilson, a dynamic wide receiver taken with the No. 10 overall pick in the 2022 NFL Draft. He took the field for a whopping six of 35 first-half offensive plays. Better to have Lawrence Cager, a former receiver playing tight end in a regular season game for the first time in his NFL career, on the field, right?
So Saleh set the course for an ultra-conservative game plan with an ill-fitting QB and came away surprised that his offense was gaffe-prone and his defense wore out a bit in the second half.
Who could have foreseen that?