One starts to wonder whether all six Jets losses from this season are being copied and pasted from the same script.
Gang Green dropped their third straight game Sunday with a 38-33 loss to the Las Vegas Raiders at MetLife Stadium. It was yet another performance in which head coach Aaron Glenn’s squad had given themselves every chance to win, but failed to execute in the game’s most crucial moments.
If this game followed a script, it was flipped from earlier games; the offense was far from the problem. Geno Smith slung the ball for 290 yards, completing 20 of 32 attempts for two touchdowns on the day; and Braelon Allen smashed his career high in rushing yards with 147, including a touchdown of his own.
The Raiders scored a touchdown later on that drive.
Sunday’s loss largely fell on the defense; New York’s vaunted pass rush failed to meet the moment, only sacking Kirk Cousins once.
The Jets failed to force a turnover from Vegas and couldn’t get the Raiders off the field on third down, allowing conversions on six of nine attempts. Brock Bowers makes many defenses look silly, and the Jets were no exception; he had seven catches for 92 yards. Cousins threw for 247 yards and three scores for a 141.0 passer rating.
“We’re all disappointed in the way this one ended,” Glenn said in the postgame presser (h/t SNY). “Defense, we’ve got to find a way to get better at what we’re doing. And we can’t have critical penalties in situations we can’t have them, and that’s third down for the most part. We can’t give up a touchdown on the kickoff. And again, I have to dig deep and figure out how to improve on defense.”
Despite the strong surface numbers, the offense still sputtered at the worst times. New York settled for four haunting red zone field goals, including one in the final five minutes of the fourth quarter.
Wide receiver Garrett Wilson was heavily featured on New York’s opening few drives, but then didn’t record a second-half catch until the final eight minutes of the second half. Even though the Jets moved the ball extremely well, gaining 424 yards of offense, they struggled to move the chains on third down, going 4 for 11 on the day.
Penalties were not nearly as prevalent; they only committed six for 32 yards, but they couldn’t be timed worse. A fourth-quarter false start killed their first drive after the Raiders grabbed the lead. Defensively, New York committed pass interference on a third and 10 from the Vegas 35.
The offense kept the Jets in the game all day despite the defense’s shortcomings. Gang Green had one final chance with 30 seconds to go to get the ball in the end zone, but Smith wound up throwing an interception with just 10 seconds left to end the effort.
Good teams, when they’re within a score of achieving victory, find a way to win. Bad teams snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The fact that five of New York’s six losses have been by one score this season says a lot about the current state of the franchise.
It also makes Glenn’s hot seat even hotter; as Jets head coach, his record in one-score games fell to 4-9.
Things don’t get any easier for the Jets next week; they will head to Arrowhead Stadium for a date with the Kansas City Chiefs.
