The Jets keep saying they're better than how they've played. But what if this is who they really are?
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Russell Wilson greets Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers after an NFL game in Pittsburgh on Sunday. Credit: AP/Gene J. Puskar
PITTSBURGH
The Jets keep telling us this isn’t who they are. Then they keep going back onto the field and showing us otherwise.
Every word they utter lately seems to serve an attempt to spin the idea that somewhere, somehow, they have more to them than the way they play. They argue that the month since their last victory is not a true representation of their talents or their character. They do such a good job of it that we almost believe them.
But there is one severe problem with their take: reality.
That’s what came crashing down all around them on Sunday night when they jumped out to a 15-6 lead over the Steelers at Acrisure Stadium before giving up 31 unanswered points in a 37-15 loss. After a week spent discussing the urgency of this contest, the Jets played what looked from the outside to be an uninspired brand of football.
So now they are 2-5. Now they have lost four straight. Now they are three games behind first-place Buffalo in the division.
“That’s not who this team is,” still-winless interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich said with an anger (and yes, some R-rated words) that demonstrated more fight than his team showed for much of the game.
Maybe it is, though. Maybe they have been this way long enough now to label them in permanent ink as the undisciplined, underachieving, unremarkable group they have demonstrated themselves to be.
“If we accept that,” Ulbrich said, “then the season is lost.”
So what do we call this? Because it sure doesn’t feel like saving anything, whether it be the season, jobs, legacies or just the weekly disposition of their fans who gobble up their rhetoric and then find themselves disappointed again and again.
“It’s been a rough stretch,” Aaron Rodgers said. “We gotta figure it out. Play better, that’s the key.”
Something seems to be blocking these Jets from doing that lately.
Rodgers said he could sense the precarious mood of the team before this game. He noted that energy was very high on Saturday night when three players addressed the roster in meetings, but by the time they were on the field for warm-ups on Sunday night, that mojo had disappeared.
“I just don’t quite understand why the energy was a little bit flat,” Rodgers said.
The Jets did regain some of it early on, but when Rodgers threw the first of his two interceptions on a poor pass intended for Garrett Wilson with 1:15 left in the first half and the Steelers scored a touchdown five plays later, that was pretty much that.
“It was a huge shift in momentum,” Ulbrich said.
One that winning teams can overcome, though. One that the Jets, despite their dazzling skills and talented depth chart, are not equipped to deal with right now.
“It shouldn’t be that difficult,” Rodgers said, again noting how “flat” the team felt in the halftime locker room.
And they were still winning!
Obviously, it is difficult for these Jets to overcome any speed bump right now, whether it be individually or as a team. In the third quarter, they gave up their lead when they allowed 10 points in 34 seconds, first yielding a field goal on Pittsburgh’s first possession of the second half and then giving the ball back to the Steelers on an interception that bounced off Wilson and into the arms of the defender he had just beaten on his route. Beanie Bishop Jr. returned that pick 41 yards to the 1 and Russell Wilson pushed his way into the end zone on a quarterback sneak to put the Steelers ahead 23-15.
The last chance at regaining their footing seemed to come late in that third quarter when the Jets drove to the Pittsburgh 17.
Rodgers threw an incomplete pass for Wilson, the Jets needed to call a timeout to avoid a delay, T.J. Watt stuffed a Rodgers pass back in his face, a third-down pass for Mike Williams was incomplete and a 35-yard field-goal attempt was blocked.
For those of us who have been watching long enough, none of this is a surprise. The Jets didn’t fall into this dysfunction and despair only recently. There are some new observers, though, for whom it is as baffling as it is troubling. Rodgers, new Jets receiver Davante Adams, even Haason Reddick, who is joining the team on Monday, they all believed they were coming to a team they could turn around with just their talent and their will.
Fifty-five years of losing doesn’t about-face that easily.
“It’s a belief,” Rodgers said. “You have to have culture-changers in the midst of talent to steer things in the right direction. There are a lot of us leaders trying to do that week to week, but it comes down to each individual making the right decisions during the week in preparation and going out and playing the best they can.”
He added: “We just gotta win.”
Sounds simple enough . . . until you realize it’s the Jets saying it.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
