EAST RUTHERFORD – The why is an easy diagnosis. It’s been the same throughout this miserable year. The Jets don’t do the little things needed to win. It’s why they lost to the Los Angeles Rams, 19-9. It’s why they’re 4-11. It’s why they’ll miss the playoffs for a professional-sports-worst 14th straight year.
How to fix it is an entirely different story.
“A lot of stuff that gets us is the same stuff all season,” quarterback Aaron Rodgers said. “Just the details in some certain areas hurt us.”
The Jets have talent. That’s not a joke. They do. This isn’t like those many, many years in recent memory where they found themselves eliminated from playoff contention long before Santa squeezed down Woody Johnson’s chimney. The offense has protection (before Olu Fashanu suffered a potentially serious foot injury) and playmakers (Garrett Wilson, Davante Adams, Breece Hall). The defense was among the best in football before the premature firing of Robert Saleh.
The preseason hype, based on talent and talent alone, was justified.
What’s so tantalizing about this team is they tease you with that potential at some point each week, too. Sunday’s game was no exception. That first drive, which went 99 yards in 14 plays, was so surgical. Hall pounded through on the ground. Wilson made plays through the air. The line gave Rodgers all day. The final play a culmination of it all: A play-fake fooled the defense, Rodgers rolled out, then threw a picture-perfect pass to Adams in the back of the end zone, over a defender, for a toe-tapping score.
But then it all falls apart. The offense didn’t find the end zone again. The defense crumbles when it matters most (13 of 19 points allowed in the fourth quarter). The special teams came up lame (two missed field goals) when relied on. Coaches make inexcusable game mismanagements that prove costly (2-for-5 on fourth down).
You need talent to win, but you won’t win without details.
“I think we have the ability to inspire,” said Rodgers. “But in the end, motivation comes from within. It has to be each person motivated to find the little things in the offense where they can really lock in on the details, because there’s a few plays every single game, might be a play in the first or second quarter that wins the game.
“It comes down to the little adjustments or details or reactions in the game and just training yourself to make the proper reaction. Some of that’s setting the standard in preparation, but a lot of it’s just on all of us to care enough to put that little extra time in I think.”
The Jets will have a new general manager soon. They’ll add a new coach. In all likelihood they’ll have a new quarterback. Those three will be tasked with instilling a new culture.
Until that happens nothing will change.
“We have to be better,” Wilson said. “Have to be better when it matters.”
