Jets need to clear the error
Watching the tape of Sunday’s 37-17 loss to the Vikings was painful for a Jets team that saw chances to win the game slip away because of its own mistakes.
The Jets trailed 10-7 at halftime before the game spiraled out of control after they made mistakes on offense, defense and special teams.
“It just put a bad taste in my mouth that we let that type of game that we felt we should have won [get away],” cornerback Morris Claiborne said. “We felt like we played well enough to win and we let them get off the hook.”
The Jets are now 3-4 and facing the same situation they faced last year, when the season spiraled out of control on the way to a 5-11 finish. The Jets vow that won’t happen again this year.
But the Jets have to figure out how to cut down on mistakes if they want to beat the best teams in the league. The Jets played well enough to beat teams like the Colts and Broncos, who are mediocre at best. They looked outclassed by a Vikings team viewed as a Super Bowl contender.
“We consider them all tough,” Jets coach Todd Bowles said. “It’s not like it’s an easy week and then a hard week. We just have to execute. It’s really that simple. You’ve got to execute every week in this league, and you’ve got to win games differently. They’re not going to be blowouts or anything like that. They’re going to be close games. There’s a few plays in the game that’s going to turn the tide, and we have to make those plays. We didn’t make them yesterday.”
In Sunday’s loss, the cul- prits were easy to find. The Jets offense vanished in the second and third quarters, when they managed a total of 22 yards.
“You can credit [the Vikings],” Bowles said. “They had a good game plan and they adjusted from there. We didn’t execute. We had a guy break down here or there, or we had some things going on that didn’t work out. You have to give a lot of credit to them. They have a good defense.”
The Jets special teams made some big mistakes that resulted in great field position for the Vikings and poor field position for the Jets. Whether it was a 28-yard punt after a dropped snap from Lachlan Edwards or punt returner Andre Roberts letting a ball go over his head that landed inside the 10, the mistakes piled up. The Jets had five drives that began inside their own 20. The Vikings had five that started in Jets territory.
The defense played pretty well for most of the day, but had a boneheaded mistake of its own. In the third quarter, trailing 20-10, Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins threw a lateral to Stefon Diggs at the Minnesota 26-yard line. Instead of pouncing on it, Jets linebacker Darron Lee and cornerback Parry Nickerson, who were both near the ball, stopped playing, believing it was an incomplete pass. It could have been a huge momentum swing to recover that ball.
“We’ve got to play all the way through,” Bowles said. “Obviously, we can’t relax.”
Claiborne pointed to it as a learning experience.
“We all should have been running to the ball,” Claiborne said. “It’s not just on Parry. It’s not just on D-Lee. We should have been on it as a unit. ...
“It’s a good situation to learn from. Maybe the next time when it comes up we’ll handle it the right way.”
The Jets could say that about a lot of situations Sunday. brian.costello@nypost.com