Al Iannazzone: Good feelings from Jets' 1-0 start are gone as season threatens to spiral away
Jets running back Braelon Allen runs with the ball during the second half of an NFL game against the Chicago Bears on Sunday in Chicago. Credit: AP/David Banks
The Jets don’t have to worry about their interception drought anymore. They have more pressing matters to address anyway.
In their 23-12 victory over the Jets on Sunday, the Bears dominated on both sides of the football, on the sidelines and in the boxes upstairs where some of the play-calling is done.
For all of the talk about how close the Jets were to turning the corner after two narrow losses, they went backward in this game.
Aaron Glenn spoke during the week about how competitive training camp practices were in Detroit when he was the Lions’ defensive coordinator and Bears coach Ben Johnson was the offensive coordinator. Their first matchup as head coaches wasn’t competitive at all, though, as Johnson got the better of Glenn in a landslide.
This was the type of performance that exposed the Jets’ shortcomings — all of them.
They never established anything on offense. They ran only 32 plays all day. Geno Smith was a pedestrian 8-for-15, with only three of those completions going to Garrett Wilson and none to Kenyon Sadiq.
Offensive coordinator Frank Reich has to scheme up plays to make sure the ball is in their hands. Smith has to make sure he gets the ball to his best playmakers.
Braelon Allen, who started for the injured Breece Hall, had 16 touches. The rest of the Jets’ skill players had six.
Despite their high ranking, the Jets are not one of the best defenses in the league. Top defenses don’t allow 492 yards of offense, including 232 rushing yards.
Running back Kyle Monangai ran for 146 yards, 11 fewer than the Jets’ total offense. Good defenses don’t let the opposing offense run 89 plays and possess the ball for 42:45.
Where are the Jets’ edge rushers and where is the pass rush? Rookie David Bailey and Will McDonald are making no impact. The Jets didn’t get a sack from a defensive lineman for the second straight game.
The final insult for Glenn’s defense came on the Bears’ last possession. They took over at their own 9-yard line with 9:16 left in the game, and the Jets never touched the ball again.
Penalties contributed to the Jets not getting the ball back, and they played a big part in this game. It was that lack of discipline that kept them from getting off the field. They committed 12 penalties, eight on defense.
After going an NFL-record 20 games without an interception, they picked off four passes — and three were nullified because of penalties. That’s something that could happen only to the Jets. Minkah Fitzpatrick’s interception of Tyson Bagent’s pass in the second quarter was the only one that counted.
In the end, who cares? Not Glenn.
“We got an interception. Great,” he said. “We lost the game. That’s what’s so backwards about the thinking of everybody. Man, we lost the game. We lost the game, and that’s what I’m thinking about.”
The end of the interception streak was big news because of how insanely long it was. Of course, the bigger issue is the loss, how it happened and the possibility of more and more coming.
With their next two games against 3-1 Cleveland and the reigning AFC champion Patriots, the Jets could be on their way to another really long fall and winter in which seats at MetLife Stadium are empty or filled with opposing teams’ fans.
The Jets’ history is not good, as everyone knows. Things can spiral quickly for this team. They usually do.
Glenn wants to keep the negativity out of the locker room and doesn’t want that history to be a topic, but they have a better chance of going another 20 games without an interception than they do of that happening.
“History’s going to be brought up so much from the outside,” he said. “Just beat down on history so much that we just have to circle the wagons and not let any of that come inside our locker room and know that we’ve been working our [butt] off to change that.”
The change isn’t happening quickly enough for anyone’s liking. The good feelings from a 1-0 start are gone. The Jets are 1-3 and probably should have at least one more win, maybe two.
If this continues, talk of a coaching change will heat up. Everyone put Glenn No. 1 on the list of coaches most likely to be fired.
This game reflected poorly on Glenn, but not just him. He ultimately will take the brunt of the blame, but Reich had a rough day, Smith had a rough day, and all of the other coaches and players did, too.
Glenn said they “all have to muster up something inside to be able to get this thing turned in the right direction when you have a game like this.”
It has to happen soon, or we know how this is going to end — for the Jets and for Glenn.
Al Iannazzone covers the Jets for Newsday after spending nearly two decades on the NBA beat with Knicks and Nets.
