JOKE’S ON JETS
Despite their preseason bravado, Saleh’s defense an embarrassment
WELL, FAIR is fair. Turns out Jets cornerback D.J. Reed was right. Reed, you’ll recall, said this during the summer: “I think we have the potential to be the best defense in the NFL and honestly I think we can be historical. Not just the best defense in the league, but I think we can have a historical defense like the ’85-86 Bears.”
He’s heard about that a lot, but I’m here to tell you he’s probably right, actually. I think man-forman, the ’23 Jets defense is better than the ’85 Super Bowl Shufflers. Of course, Mike Singletary is 65.
Wilber Marshall is 61. Richard Dent is 63.
Gary Fencik is 69.
J!E!T!S!…
It’s no laughing matter, of course. The Jets got clobbered again Thursday night, lashed at the lake by the Browns in Cleveland, 37-20. There were the usual suspects to blame — a near-comical offense, some abysmal coaching across the board. Most of the season, it was easy — and, most nights, right — to feel sorry for the Jets’ defense, which has had its moments this year. And if you give yourself a few minutes, you might even be able to remember a few of them.
But a week after trying — desperately — to hand a football game to the Commanders, two weeks after the Dolphins made them look like they were playing 8-on-11 all afternoon, the Jets opted not to waste any time and allowed Joe Flacco — !!! — to taunt them and tooth them all across a rollicking first half which turned a sold-out Cleveland Browns Stadium into an early New Year’s celebration.
“It wasn’t good enough,” a chastened Robert Saleh said. “All the way across the board.”
The Jets looked positively hapless in that first half, hopeless against the spells of Flacco, who was driving carpools two months ago and, as it turns out, might have been a useful phone call 3 ½ months ago.
Good for Flacco, who has become the best story in the homestretch of this NFL season and is easy to root for. He’s made all five defenses he’s faced looked like they turned their watches back to 2014 or so, and this was his fourth straight 300-plus yard game (296 coming in the first half).
But the Jets were supposed to be different. Remember, this was a defense that — in its head coach’s own regrettable words — had made a regular habit of allegedly “embarrassing” the NFL’s best quarterbacks. Glacial Joe Flacco? Surely they would make mincemeat out of glacial Joe Flacco.
Turns out the joke’s on them. And on Saleh.
Only, this isn’t so funny. It’s actually not even remotely amusing. Remember, the one thread of hope the Jets have been able to sell this year is the what-if fantasy of if this defense had had Aaron Rodgers watching its six all season long — and vice versa. The Rodgers part of that fantasy evaporated four snaps into the season. The other half dissolved on a mild night in Cleveland, four days before a New Year that suddenly can’t come fast enough.
The defense is what allows for the fantasy that things can be better next year, when the Jets have already publicly vowed that they will run it all back, that all the principals will be back in the house — Joe Douglas, Robert Saleh, Aaron Rodgers.
And it was a positively dreadful night for the first two of those holdovers — Douglas having to watch Flacco fillet his team, knowing he’ll have to answer for why he didn’t call Flacco at halftime of the opener and offer a plane ticket to Florham Park; Saleh watching his defense look ordinary in its best moments and deplorable in its worst.
“I’ve got to figure it out,” Saleh said.
Rodgers was stoic as he paced the sidelines. At some point, you have to wonder if he has fully realized what he’s signed up for here.
Here’s what he’s signed up for: a team of prophets. Reed was right: if you line his defense up against the 60-somethings wearing their old Bears jerseys, take the Jets. And Saleh, he has shown that he can absolutely identify what an embarrassment looks like. J!E!T!S!…