Flag football keeps setting Gang back
he did last season. The Daily News reported last week that third-string quarterback Christian Hackenberg is not guaranteed to play this year.
ADAMS IMPRESSES
Jamal Adams is a burgeoning leader in the Jets’ locker room, and the rookie safety made a statement to his teammates and coaches Sunday in a loss to the Panthers, when he approached Cam Newton while the star quarterback was celebrating a touchdown run in the second quarter.
Adams said something to Newton and gave him a shove on the shoulder before referees broke up the minor altercation. No flags were thrown.
“Just a guy that cares. He’s passionate about the ball game. He’s one of our young leaders growing up,” Bowles said of Adams. “It’s not about taking on a superstar. It’s about caring about the game and caring about the team and caring about your home stadium and having a desire to be better and get the team better.”
Added cornerback Morris Claiborne, an LSU alum like Adams: “He comes from LSU, man. You don’t back down from nobody, no matter what the situation is, no matter who you are, how big you are in the game. To him, you could be in the game 10 years, and he has been here just this year, we’re on the same level right now. It don’t matter how many years you got on me, I’m not going to back down. I might respect you, but I’m not going to back down from you. “We expect him to bring that different type of swagger on the field, because we all feed off of it.”
NOT BOWLED OVER
Bowles said he talked with Robby Anderson about the second-year wide receiver’s decision to campaign for Pro Bowl consideration while on the sideline Sunday. Anderson yelled into a TV camera and drew the ire of analyst Chris Spielman, a former NFL player. Bowles called it a “selfish” move in his postgame news conference. Anderson amassed a career-high 146 receiving yards and caught two touchdowns in the loss. “We had a discussion,” Bowles said. “We’re on the same page.”
Bowles wouldn’t elaborate on what exactly was discussed.
FURTHER REVIEW
After reviewing the film of Austin Seferian-Jenkins’ overturned touchdown in the fourth quarter Sunday, Bowles remained bewildered by the call. “It was hard to see him bobble the ball,” Bowles said. “It’s the second time we’ve been involved in one of these things. They had a better view than I did. I couldn’t see it on the video replay. I couldn’t see it on tape. But they made the call, they looked at it tough, so we got to hang onto the football going to the ground if that was the case.” ONE PLAY that truly exemplifies the issues plaguing the Jets this season came late in the third quarter of Sunday’s calamity of a loss to the Panthers at MetLife Stadium.
Cam Newton and the Carolina offense faced a fourth-and-2 from the Jets’ 32-yard line, trailing by five points. All week, Todd Bowles and his defensive staff had hammered home this point to their players: On third or fourth and short, expect a hard count from the Panthers quarterback. And in this crucial spot, that’s exactly what Newton did.
Outside linebacker Jordan Jenkins bit on the fake snap, though, and crossed the line of scrimmage. The refs called offsides. The Panthers earned a first down without running a play and scored a go-ahead touchdown two minutes later. From there, the Jets collapsed.
Jenkins’ mistake epitomized the Jets’ problems. They have struggled all season with costly penalties. This was as costly as they come. Eleven games into this 2017 season, the truth is abundantly clear: The Jets lack discipline, especially late in games, and it’s perhaps the primary reason they’re sitting at 4-7, on the outside of the playoff picture.
“We’re continuing to mess up on things we’re addressing, and it’s starting to catch up with us,” Leonard Williams said Monday on a conference call. “I would say it’s a discipline thing because on film, we weren’t getting physically beat. There wasn’t a lack of effort. Guys were running around, flying around, being physical, playing fast. The offense, they were giving us exactly what we’d seen from them on film, so it seemed like guys knew what our opponent was doing. But we would just mess up on plays here and there, self-inflicted wounds basically. And it comes down to discipline.”
The Jets have blown fourth-quarter leads in three of their last four losses. They are third in the league in total flags with 104, 29 of which have come in the fourth quarter or overtime.
“We have to take that ownership because we shouldn’t have to wait for a coach to step up and tell us to finish. We shouldn’t have to wait for a coach to bring it up in practice if the practice isn’t going well,” Williams said. “At the end of the day, the players run this team. It’s our team, and if we’re seeing something that needs to change, we should be the ones to address it. We should be the ones to say what’s going well and what’s not going well.”
Jenkins wasn’t the only Jet to commit a boneheaded penalty late in the game Sunday. After the Jets pulled to within five points on a Josh McCown touchdown pass to Jermaine Kearse, the defense appeared to get off the field when Newton lofted an incompletion down the left sideline on third-and-11. More than two minutes remained on the clock. McCown, it seemed, would have an opportunity to drive the length of the field and win the game.
But defensive lineman Mike Pennel delivered a late and high hit to Newton after the quarterback released the ball. The Panthers, again, were gifted a first down. They iced the game with 25 seconds left on a Graham Gano field goal.