STINK BOMB!
Jets’ tank job starts with a total clunker — from offense, defense & coach
ORCHARD PARK — If Sam Darnold tuned in to watch any of the Jets-Bills game Sunday, he may be at the USC registrar’s off ice right now lining up his course schedule for 2018-19.
The Jets did their part on Sunday for the crowd who wants them to “Suck for Sam” with a 21-12 loss to the Bills at New Era Field. The Jets are 0-1 and on their way toward the No. 1 draft pick in 2018. One down, 15 losses to go. They looked worthy of the top pick Sunday, giving up 408 yards to the lowly Bills, managing one touchdown and doing very little well except punting.
“We played hard, but we didn’t play smart,” Todd Bowles said.
That includes the head coach. Bowles’ decision to punt with four minutes left in the game and trailing by nine points capped off a day of incompetence for the Jets. The decision did not cost the Jets the game, but was indicative of a team that looked lost.
It is hard to identify what the biggest issue was for the Jets. Do you want to go with their failure to even slow down LeSean McCoy (159 total yards)? Maybe you’d like to talk about their own lack of a running game (38 yards on 15 carries).
“If we can’t run the ball and can’t stop the run, we’re going to have a problem,” Bowles said.
What’s that you say? You’d like to hear about the secondary giving up passes of 47, 35, 22 and 21 (twice) yards.
“They came out and gashed us, it seemed like at will,” cornerback Morris Claiborne said. “Obviously, we have a lot of things that we have to work on as a unit and a whole ballclub. Half of the things … I feel like we beat ourselves.”
While the offense was expected to be terrible, the defense was shockingly bad in this game. The Bills’ first drive of the game was a clinic until Tyrod Taylor threw an interception to Juston Burris in the end zone. McCoy dashed and darted his way through the Jets. He wound up with 110 rush- ing yards on 22 carries and 49 receiving yards on five catches.
All week, the Jets emphasized stopping McCoy. They also told the defenders not to let Taylor get outside. But he gained 38 yards rushing to go with 224 yards passing after being removed from the concussion protocol this week.
“It’s very frustrating when that’s what you practiced all week,” Claiborne said. “That’s what your coaches harped on all week is set the edges on this guy, don’t let him get outside. You can’t let the quarterback scramble and we go out there and let them do everything that we prac- ticed not to do.”
As bad as the Jets looked, they were down just 7-6 at halftime. But the Bills took control midway through the third quarter. A 47-yard pass from Taylor to Jordan Matthews, with Buster Skrine missing the tackle, set the Bills up deep in Jets territory. Taylor found Andre Holmes for a 1-yard touchdown and a 14-6 lead.
The Jets answered with their most impressive drive of the game. They went 75 yards on 11 plays and Josh McCown scored on a 1-yard sneak. The two-point conversion failed, leaving the Jets trailing 14-12.
The Je t s defe ns e buckl e d again, though. McCoy opened the fourth quarter with a 27-yard run. Four plays later Mike Tolbert rumbled in from a yard out and the Bills went up 21-12.
The teams traded punts and then McCown threw his f irst interception as a Jet, getting picked off by Jordan Poyer. The Bills went three-and-out, but time was now working against the Jets. They stalled at their own 44 and were faced with fourth-and-8 with four minutes left in the game. Bowles called on the punt team, a decision reminiscent of last year in Pittsburgh.
“We thought we could get field position and we had three timeouts,” Bowles said. “We thought we could stop them and get the ball back. It was as simple as that.”
The decision did not work when Taylor ran for 9 yards around the edge on third-and-7. Buffalo ran the clock down to 1:52 before punting to the Jets. McCown was intercepted by Micah Hyde, ending any hope of a comeback.
The Jets now have a week to lick their wounds and prepare for the Raiders in Oakland, a game that looks like a sure loss.
“[An] 0-1 [record] doesn’t def ine us,” Bowles said of his message to the team. “We lost the game. ... We’re not going to hang our heads. We’re going to get ready and correct our mistakes and get ready for Oakland.”
While most of the fan base seems committed to losing this season in hopes of landing Darnold or UCLA’s Josh Rosen, the Jets players and coaches are not thinking about 2018. They want to win now, and Sunday was a failure.
“The standard is high and we understand we need to win now,” nose tackle Steve McLendon said. “We aren’t in the business of we’ll wait ’til next year to win. We’re in it to win it now.”