BUCCANEERS GROUND JETS:
Lifeless & fading Gang just not good enough
TAMPA — There were no hip-thrusting, head-bobbin’, body-convulsing antics this time around. Nobody was cutting a rug, getting jiggy with it or trying to channel their inner Soul Train. Nine days after the Jets went viral in prime time, the dancing stopped, replaced by a headscratching silence in the wake of a dud.
The Jets disappeared in a lifeless 15-10 loss to the Buccaneers on Sunday that makes you wonder if they’re getting closer to the inevitable abyss. Something sure as hell doesn’t feel right.
“You’ve got to show up ev- ery week in this league or you’ll get it handed to you,” said Todd Bowles, whose team has lost four of its last five games to drop to 4-6. “We didn’t show up today.”
Bowles’ offense took a nap for the better part of three hours, playing a horrific brand a football that even a mother would despise. The Jets had twice as many punts (six) as points (three) through three quarters. They were a disjointed mess that allowed six sacks to a team that entered the day with a league-worst eight sacks in the first eight games.
“We’re not a bad team,” left tackle Kelvin Beachum said. “We just do some stupid stuff sometimes. And it’s all of our faults.”
Forget about the Jets’ window-dressing touchdown in the final minute. Don’t be fooled: This offensive stench will linger through the Week 11 bye before these guys hit the field again on Nov. 26 against the Panthers.
“When you play like we played on offense,” tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins said, “it’s no surprise that you won’t win.”
Bowles’ defense held the Bucs, who played without their two best offensive playmakers (Jameis Winston and Mike Evans), to just three field goals through three quarters before a meltdown on Tampa’s only touchdown drive. The Jets had two critical third-down gaffes on a 15-play fourthquarter drive that crushed them. Darryl Roberts’ pass interference on 3rd-and-10 and Charles Sims’ 21-yard run on 3rd-and-15 set the stage for Ryan Fitzpatrick’s 6-yard touchdown pass to Sims to effectively put the game out of reach with six minutes left.
A week after virtually every defensive starter was showing off his dance moves in a rout of the Bills, they didn’t make any game-changing plays against a team that had lost five in a row.
“I don’t think we were overconfident,” defensive tackle Steve McLendon said. “It seemed like they wanted it more than we did. I’m not saying that our team didn’t come out and fight. We did. We did fight. But did we play smart?” Well, no. The Jets committed stupid penalties. Again. Lots of them. Again.
Bowles’ team had eight penalties for 77 yards, including one on the opening kickoff and three in the first freakin’ four-and-half minutes.
It’s a wonder that Bowles had the composure not to scream his face off. If he had hair, he would have surely pulled it out.
A lesser man would have gone ape-you-knowwhat on his players for the same self-inflicted wounds that have plagued this team for 10 weeks.
“Played hard,” Bowles said matter-of-factly. “Didn’t play smart.”
The swaggerlicious Jets turned decidedly unswaggerlicious. Something was amiss from the jump.
Josh McCown, who entered the game second in the league in completion percentage, completed fewer than half his passes for 112 yards, an interception and 42.2 passer rating through three quarters before some garbage-time production bumped up his final totals (23-for-39, 262 yards, 1 TD, 77.1 passer rating). One week after the Jets ran for more than 200 yards, they managed only 56 yards on the ground on 2.9 yards per carry. John Morton’s unit converted 3 of 15 third-down attempts.
McCown miraculously made it out of Raymond James Stadium in one piece after getting hit 14 times.
The breakdown of the Jets’ 12 possessions: Seven punts, 1 interception, 1 fumble, 1 change of possession on loss of downs and a grand total of 10 points.
Why sugarcoat it? It was a train wreck with a capital T,R,A,I,N, W, R, E,C and K.
“(Tampa Bay) played in our backfield all day long,” Bowles said. “We missed blocks and we got penalties. It was just a cluster.”
Blaming the Jets’ see-saw first 10 weeks on youth is a cop-out.
“I’ll tell you this about the NFL: It doesn’t matter how old you are,” said Seferian-Jenkins, whose six catches for 67 yards came when the game was out of reach. “You’re expected to perform. So that young team stuff, you can throw that out the window. Because if you’re young, they don’t care.
“If you’re old, they don’t care. They care about performance, and that’s what we need to do. That’s an excuse for a team. And we don’t need excuses. We need to perform.”
Bowles & Co. will have two weeks to figure out what went wrong against a team on life support. Are the mistakes correctable? Or will the I Jets fade to black down the stretch? s it already over?
“We still have opportunities to make it to the playoffs,” Beachum said. “The best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.”
But here’s the elephant in the room: These Jets just aren’t good enough.