Soft O-line keeps Darnold under pressure

Their quarterback may have been seeing ghosts, but the lights never came on for the Jets offensive line, either.

It was a patched-up unit that took the field for the Jets, but it turned in an abysmal performance nonetheless, acting like a sieve in a 33-0 loss to the Patriots on Monday night at MetLife Stadium.

The final stats showed that the Jets allowed only one sack, but it hardly did justice to how much Sam Darnold was under siege early. He didn’t help himself, either, with a brutal performance that included four interceptions and a lost fumble. But his turnovers were mostly forced by pressure coming from the Patriots, which the Jets had no answers for.

“We gotta be sharper up-front,” left guard Alex Lewis said. “We gotta be able to pick all that up. It’s our job. We gotta be our own worst critic, especially up-front. We gotta take control as a unit and come back ready for next week.”

Darnold’s first three interceptions came on plays when the Patriots came blitzing and the offensive line failed to protect him well enough. The fumble came on a strip-sack by John Simon, who came off the edge untouched to harass Darnold.

“They were bringing more guys than we could block,” Darnold said.

The Jets entered the game without the services of starting left tackle Kelvin Beachum, who is week-to-week with an ankle injury he suffered last Sunday against the Cowboys. Brandon Shell, who had lost his job at right tackle, reentered the lineup with his replacement, Chuma Edoga, moving over to Beachum’s spot at left tackle. Lewis started his third straight game at left guard for Kelechi Osemele, who was inactive again with a shoulder injury that has caused a dispute between him and the Jets over whether he needs surgery.

Veteran center Ryan Kalil, who sustained a shoulder injury during the week, left the game briefly with an elbow injury in the second quarter and was replaced by Jonotthan Harrison. But Kalil returned for the third quarter, in time to sail a snap over Darnold’s head that resulted in a safety to push the Patriots’ lead to 26-0.

The carnage continued in the fourth quarter, when right guard Brian Winters left the field with an injury and had to be replaced by Tom Compton.

“They’re were bringing a lot of zero pressure,” Shell said. “We just gotta keep working. Just gotta get to the tape, see what happened.”