One play can sum up the 2024 New York Jets. It’s Mike Williams falling down.
The Jets, in their first game with interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich replacing fired Robert Saleh, had a shot to beat the Buffalo Bills despite numerous mistakes including a stunning amount of penalties and a couple of huge missed field goals. Aaron Rodgers found Williams downfield for what looked like a massive gain that would have put the Jets inside the red zone. But as Williams started to come back to the ball, he fell down. That allowed Bills cornerback Taron Johnson to dive in front of Williams and get a game-clinching interception.
That’s the Jets this season. An opportunity for something special was there, and they tripped all over themselves getting to it. The Bills ran out the clock after that interception and won 23-20.
The Jets knew the stakes coming into the game. If they won they would be 3-3 and in first place of the AFC East. A loss and they’d be two games behind the Bills, with a disappointing 2-4 record. Even in mid-October it felt like a must-win game for the Jets, especially after the coaching change shook up the organization.
There aren’t any more coaching changes coming. The Jets lost, and now they have a big hole to dig out of. It doesn’t help that they can’t get out of their own way.
Jets get a huge Hail Mary
The Jets were far from perfect but they were moving the ball, mostly through big plays by their stars. Breece Hall came out of his slump and looked like the player we had seen his first two seasons. Garrett Wilson caught a nice touchdown in the back of the end zone and had a productive first half. The Jets didn’t just fire Saleh. They changed play-callers from Nathaniel Hackett to Todd Downing, and the difference was notable.
The Jets’ biggest play of the first half was luck, though it’s getting to a point in which Rodgers Hail Marys seem like a skill. On the final play of the first half Rodgers wound up and threw it to the end zone, and Allen Lazard came down with a 52-yard touchdown. That was his fourth career Hail Mary, and his first with the Jets. Maybe he knows what he’s doing on those plays.
That kept the Jets in the game despite a huge half from Josh Allen. He had a quarterback sneak for a touchdown, two other passing touchdowns and was making big plays everywhere on the field. He scrambled to his right and fired a deep pass to running back Ray Davis for a stunning 42-yard gain.
The Bills had the best player on the field. But the Jets have plenty of talent too, and they were desperate. They just couldn’t stop making critical mistakes.
Jets keep making mistakes
The Jets have a new coach but still made bad mistakes. There was a key sequence in the third quarter when a holding penalty brought back a Braelon Allen touchdown, Wilson had a touchdown in his arms but was crushed in the end zone and dropped it, and then on fourth down Zuerlein bounced a 32-yard field-goal attempt off the crossbar. Then in the fourth quarter Zuerlein, who missed a last-minute field goal that could have beaten the Denver Broncos in Week 4, had another attempt go off the crossbar from 43 yards out. The game was tied 20-20 but the Jets had blown opportunities to get more points.
The Jets have been off all season in terms of execution. A key penalty on either side of the ball, being a bit off on a timing route, missed field goals in key spots, it has all added up for the Jets and it didn’t change Monday night just because they had a new coach.
The Bills had their share of mistakes too. Tyler Bass missed an extra point and a field goal. Buffalo’s offense stalled a bit in the second half. Yet Buffalo still drove down and got a go-ahead field goal with 3:43 to go. And Jets defensive tackle Javon Kinlaw, who got called for a questionable roughing the passer penalty on that drive, got a 15-yard penalty for improper language toward an official after the field goal. Like the Jets needed more unforced errors.
New York had a shot in the final minutes, and the drive was kept alive by a controversial replay reversal that turned an apparent Rodgers fumble into an incomplete pass, and a defensive pass interference call. But a huge holding call brought back a Hall first down. Then Rodgers’ deep pass to Williams was picked off after Williams lost his footing.
Allen picked up a first down on a third-down run and the Bills killed the clock after that.
You won’t often find a football team make that many mistakes in a tight game. Saleh took the fall for the Jets’ disappointing start. But the results didn’t change.
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