Claiborne struggles vs. Thomas
DENVER — Morris Claiborne has been one of the best additions the Jets made this season, but Sunday was a day he’d like to forget.
Claiborne gave up repeated big plays to Demaryius Thomas, who had eight catches for 93 yards and a touchdown.
“I gave up too much,” Claiborne said. “I gave up entirely too much today.”
Claiborne got twisted up and interfered with Thomas on the Broncos star’s first-quarter touchdown. Claiborne grabbed him on the play and then never saw the ball coming. Thomas made the catch despite Claiborne being draped all over him for the 20-yard touchdown from Trevor Siemian.
“He was just finding ways to get open, period, point blank,” Claiborne said.
Claiborne called Sunday’s 23-0 loss, “embarrassing,” but said he believes the team will bounce back.
“S--t, I sure hope so,” Claiborne said. “We still have some games to play. We have to finish what we started here. We can’t lay down right now just because it’s not going our way. We have some more games to play. Knowing the guys in this locker room, we have a lot of pride. I don’t believe we’re just going to lay down and let it be what it is.”
Some of the Jets players indicated the team came out flat and without energy, but Jets coach Todd
Bowles said he did not sense any problems before the game.
“If I’d seen it coming, I’d have stopped it,” Bowles said. “We had a good week of practice and we were up in pregame. They played hard. We just didn’t execute.”
The Jets lost long snapper Thomas Hennessy to a head injury in the first quarter. He was covering a punt when he was injured. The injury forced tight end Eric Tomlinson into emergency longsnapping duty. He snapped on four punts without an issue.
Running back Elijah McGuire started the game for the Jets, but exited in the first quarter with an ankle injury. The rookie had just one carry for minus-3 yards on the game’s first play.
The Jets inactives were QB Christian Hackenberg, CB Derrick Jones, CB Jeremy Clark, LB Freddie Bishop, LB Bruce Carter,
OT Ben Ijalana and OL Jonotthan Harrison.