A MATTER OF TIME!
Under duress all game, Jets’ future shows glimpses but Gang Green beaten by a blast from their past
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — It was surprising that Zach Wilson walked into his postgame press conference Sunday in a white undershirt and not a body cast.
Officially, Wilson took 10 hits and was sacked six times by the Panthers in his NFL debut. Unofficially, it felt like the rookie quarterback was running for his life for three hours at Bank of America Stadium.
“Neck’s a little sore,” Wilson said. “A little whiplash, but I’ll be all right.”
It was an uneven debut for Wilson, Robert Saleh and the 2021 Jets. They lost 19-14 to the Panthers. But there were some positives to take away from the loss for the young team. They did not pack it in at 16-0. Wilson showed how scintillating he can be running away from defenders and how effective he can be when he gets a little protection, which did not happen much.
“I tell you what, No. 2 is going to win a lot of games for us,” linebacker C.J. Mosley said.
He nearly led them to one Sunday. Wilson piloted two touchdown drives in the second half after the offense failed to move the ball for most of the first 2 ½ quarters. He got the Jets to within five points with 1:56 left in the game after hitting Corey Davis for an 8-yard touchdown pass to cap a 10-play, 98-yard drive.
But it was too little, too late. An onside-kick attempt went out of bounds, and the Panthers iced the game with an 18-yard run by Christian McCaffrey, who tormented the Jets for 187 total yards.
“I knew this was going to go to the fourth quarter,” Jets coach Robert Saleh said. “I think we all knew this was going to be a onepossession game. We’re going to get these opportunities all season. This is a team that’s got grit. It’s a team that’s got fight. It’s a team that’s got resolve. It’s a team that’s going to show up in the fourth quarter in one-score games. Whether or not we can close the door and make the plays that win these football games is going to be the difference between whether we win or lose.”
For Saleh, it was not the debut he wanted. The Jets are 0-1 for the third straight season, but there still were some promising signs in this one. At 16-0 in the second quarter, it felt like this would be a slaughter. Instead, the Jets made it respectable and would have had a chance to go ahead if they could have stopped McCaffrey and the Panthers late.
“It was rough for us, but we fought,” said wide receiver Corey Davis, who scored two touchdowns in his Jets debut. “The second half was a little bit better. But that’s not who we are. We’re a lot better team than that. We know it. We’ve just got to show it.”
Panthers quarterback Sam Darnold did not torch his former team, but he found fellow ex-Jet Robby Anderson for a 57-yard score in the first half and ran for a 5-yard score himself. It was enough to hand the Jets the loss. Darnold went 24-for-35 passing for 279 yards.
“I’m not going to lie, seeing them on the other side that was a little different for me,” Darnold said. “But you throw that away and you look at the scheme — our offense versus their defense and you kind of forget about it in the middle of the game while you’re playing.”
If Darnold watched his successor at all, it may have looked familiar. Darnold was sacked 98 times in his three years with the Jets. Wilson started off with six on Sunday.
“The strategy was to hit him a lot,” said Panthers defensive end Brian Burns, who had one sack. “Just make his first game hell.”
Wilson showed resiliency and made some nice throws when he had time. In the first half, he threw a beautiful deep pass that fellow rookie Elijah Moore should have caught but dropped. He connected with Davis on a 35-yard pass and a 22-yard touchdown. Wilson did not use the protection issues as an excuse.
“It’s tough, but it’s part of the job,” Wilson said. “I feel like I’m getting better experiencing having stuff in your face. You’ve got to be able to play. It’s part of the quarterback position. You can’t just say, ‘Oh, there’s pressure, I can’t do my job.’ That’s why quarterback is a tough position to come by.”
On his sixth sack, it looked like he might not get up after 320-pound Derrick Brown landed on hm.
“It felt like I got hit by a truck for a second,” Wilson said.
But he caught his breath and two plays later found Davis for the 8-yard touchdown to make it 19-14 and give the Jets a glimmer of hope.
It was too much of a hole to dig out of, though. The Jets missed opportunities in the first half when Wilson threw an interception to linebacker Shaq Thompson after a red-zone stand by the Jets defense and when Tevin Coleman was stuffed for a 1-yard loss on fourth-and-1 at the Panthers’ 42. Carolina capitalized off both Jets failures with a field goal and the Anderson touchdown.
The Jets now must get things fixed before the Patriots come to MetLife Stadium next Sunday, starting with the offensive line,
a line that could be without left tackle Mekhi Becton for a while after he hurt his knee late in the third quarter.
“We were working them,” Burns said. “We were blitzing from all kind of different ways. But we really could’ve just worn them out with our four-man rush, I believe. At the end, I started to see that
they were wearing out. But it’s going to happen.
“We left some sacks out there, honestly. Yeah, we ended with six. But we could’ve easily had about nine, if we would’ve finished how we should’ve finished.”