I had a bit of a rough time with my prognostications last weekend, so I may refrain from too many predictions for the time being, which I'm sure all of you will understand. Unfortunately for the Jets growing fan base, I didn't corner the market on disappointment.
The Jets suffered one of the most lopsided one-point losses in the history of organized sports on Monday night. From the start of the game, they never seriously mounted an offensive threat, or demonstrated an ability to play disciplined football. Like John Madden said, in response to his team's relaxed dress code back in the 70's, "You can wear a coat and tie on your way to the stadium, but, no matter how you look, if you jump offsides on 3rd and 3, you're an undisciplined football player." The Jets racked up 14 penalties on Monday night. Antonio Cromartie and Kyle Wilson were the worst offenders, as Wilson looked overmatched at times, while Cromartie seemed to lose his sense of where he was on the field anytime he had to turn and chase the route.
As for the offense, the Jets treated Mark Sanchez like he was an explosive that they were afraid might detonate at any time. Despite the fact that the Ravens secondary had been decimated by injuries, Jets OC Brian Schottenheimer never put Sanchez in a position to test Baltimore downfield. The whole fanbase watched Sanchez make poor decisions with the football last year, and the coaching staff has stressed that they won't place the same pressure on Sanchez to be successful downfield to win games.
The problem is, of course, you can't allow the defense to only defend a small section of the field and hope to be successful. The defense has to respect your ability to test them vertically. Also, the book on Baltimore has always been that you're not going to make a living making high-percentage throws on their defense. You need to go deep and get the big play in order to score points. Second year RB Shonn Greene lost a key fumble in the second quarter and never had another carry. Apparently, the Jet coaching staff, after a rash of preseason fumbles, made a deal with the skill position players that if they fumbled in any game, they were coming out of the game. So, the Jets best running back was pulled in the second quarter after coughing one up.
After all, we're so dripping with talent to the extent that we can afford to have our best players sit, just to prove a point.
The worst part of the whole experience was watching the Jets larger-than-life head coach, the bombastic Rex Ryan, shrink before our eyes on the sidelines. I've been following this franchise so closely over the last 34 years that it would appear to an outsider that my life depended on it. I've watched quite a few head coaches come and go, but none of them have had quite the same effect that Ryan has had, especially in so short a time span.
If you look through the pantheon of sports legends on the New York landscape, there seems to be a special place for the silent, classy, consistent professional, the Joe DiMaggio/Derek Jeter type. The kind of guy who shows up to work every day and does his job, supports his teammates, leads by example, and plays his best when the big money is on the table. Even our hot dog types like Joe Namath became beloved because, when the stakes were the highest, they came up with the best performance.
The worst sin you can commit to a New York sports fan is to talk big and not be able to back it up. Rex Ryan spent 8 months predicting Super Bowl level success to whoever would listen, placing the bull's-eye directly on the Jets back when it came time to lace them up in September. In all actuality, no one who understands football on the most basic level, especially someone who is both a fan of the team and a realist, would overstate who the Jets were prior to the season.
The Jets went 9-7 last year, finishing at 11-8 after the postseason run. We were handed a late season win in Indianapolis when Jim Caldwell decided to pull Peyton Manning and the rest of the Colts starters in the third quarter of Week 16. We also threw several games away last year, including home games against Buffalo, Miami, and Atlanta. We could have easily won any one, or all three of those games. When all was said and done, the record we finished with was the record we deserved. We won a couple we should have lost, and lost a couple we should have won.
Coming into this season, there was every reason to believe we'd be improved, but certainly no reason to claim that we were the best team in football, especially when we had proved nothing yet in 2010, except a distinct talent at drawing attention to ourselves. I have no issue with demonstrating your confidence in the team, especially if your the head coach. But, if you don't believe it and you say it anyway, you're not only a fool, but you think we're all fools, too.
Rex Ryan proved it the other night. With a 4th and 1 on the Baltimore 10-yard line in the first half, he elected to kick a field goal rather than try to gain a yard on the ground. He essentially said to his team, "I know you can't gain a yard when you have to." The entire game, he and his coaching staff demonstrated no confidence in his offense to make plays, choosing to go three and out rather than take even the smallest risk in order to score touchdowns.
Again, Rex Ryan is within his rights as head coach to play conservatively and minimize risk. But, don't spend the whole offseason telling me and the rest of the NFL how great you are when you don't even believe it yourself. When it was nut-cutting time, you coached scared. At this point, you should probably shut up. The fastest way to get run out of town in New York is to talk large and not be able to back it up. After 4 decades of humiliation, the Jet fan base won't suffer fools gladly. From perusing the New York Jets fan message boards, the young fans love the bravado and think Rex Ryan is undoing the "Same Old Jets" defeatism of the past. But, if he runs his mouth for months and then runs and punts his way to 6-10, he'll be on the first plane out of town in no time.
There's plenty of time to right the ship, 15 regular season games to be exact. It begins this Sunday afternoon at 4:15 against the fucking Patriots. If I have to watch Tom Brady with his Justin Bieber haircut running up and down the field, I'm going to want to break my own TV. If the Jets can get a win and the Dolphins lose against the Vikings, everything will be even in the AFC East, and we can start over again. However, if the Jets take the pipe against New England, they'll be two games down and 0-1 in the division.
Things can unravel pretty quickly in the NFL, Rex. Time to put up or shut up.
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