Jets fall to 2-8 with Miami loss
The Jets continued to shoot themselves in the foot on the way to another loss.
🗽 Good morning Jets fans. It’s another Monday morning and another Monday morning with a loss. As frustrated as I was, I didn’t come close to the frustration/anger shown by coach Saleh in his post-game press conference. Let’s get into it.
🏈 Mistakes, penalties and a lack of execution if you wanted my one-line summary for the game yesterday, that would be it. The Jets had a chance to beat the Dolphins yesterday and end their AFC East drought but continued to shoot themselves in the foot to fall to 0-10 in the division over the last two years.
🏈 Kicker Matt Ammendola went 1-3 on the day, including a missed 40 yarder. His miss from 55 obviously caught in the mind of Saleh who took a delay of game penalty to kick for field position instead of trying a 56 yard FG that would have cut the deficit. Missing multiple field goals and having your coach lose faith in your ability to hit a long one is a good way to find your way to the unemployment line. The Jets kicker has now attempted 16 FG’s on the season and made 11 (68%) - Don’t be surprised to see some kickers on the tryout list this week.
🏈 Elijah Moore had just scored to make it 14-14. Miami drives down the field, but on a 3rd and 4 from the Jets 5 yard line, the Jets get a stop, a huge momentum shifter. Unfortunately, JFM who's been absent since the contract extension has his name called for a roughing the passer. It’s a penalty that gets called 100/100, next play Miami takes it in for a TD and all the momentum has shifted. When asked about the penalty after his game, Saleh said it was unacceptable. You got the feeling this is the one that stung the most. It also took the attention away from a fantastic third-down pass defense by Bryce Hall.
🏈 The 65-yard touchdown to Mack Hollins was a blown assignment on Isaiah Dunn, which happens when you have so much youth in your secondary. It looked as though Dunn was supposed to drop back and Elijah Riley was supposed to come down and cover his zone, both Dunn and Riley ended up covering the same space and Tua had a wide-open Hollins with Davis late to get over as the deep safety. When we hear about a lack of execution, this is exactly what they’re talking about.
🏈 Earlier on Sunday, I messaged a few friends to say I was looking forward to seeing more Jason Pinnock. Unfortunately, his main play came on a very questionable defensive holding call that extended the Dolphin’s drive and led to a FG to put Miami up 24-14. Saleh basically said that it was an aggressive play that he wouldn’t criticize. Let’s be honest, they took a tumble and were lucky enough to get a very generous flag. If the JFM one is called every single time, this one is 50/50 at best.
🏈 In the third quarter, the Jets had to burn two timeouts due to substitution confusion. That’s a lack of execution, but that execution is on the coaches. When you’re in a close game, you can’t be wasting timeouts. Just like the long touchdown showcased the youth of the secondary, this showcased the youth of the coaching staff.
🏈 Man, that’s a lot of negativity to start a week, isn’t it? Let’s have a break and look at our new WR1 Elijah Moore. This is just outstanding by everything involved. Miami shows an all-out cover 0 blitz before dropping back into a deep safety look, Flacco instantly recognizes this, Moore beats Byron Jones to the inside and takes it to the house. This is what a WR1 does in this league:
🏈 Don't underestimate how big a loss it was to lose Michael Carter a handful of plays into the 3rd quarter. Carter was set for a big day averaging 7 yards per carry for 63 yards total. Once Carter went out the Jets run/pass balance shifted and despite Flacco having a good day, the Jets offense never really felt as though it was flowing outside of the Moore TD catch.
🏈 It’s hard to fathom this, but the Jets failed to register a single sack on Tua yesterday. Yes there was one sack on the defensive holding that was negated, but outside of that, nothing, nill, zilch. Tackles Liam Eichenberg and Jesse Davis had given up 14 sacks between them before yesterday and despite JFM thinking that Tua was just putting up some prayers, the fact remains the pass-rush came up empty again.
🖼️ Big Picture Moment 🖼️
That recap is quite negative because it has to outline the flow of the game, but lets not lose sight of what’s important, which is the development of the key young players.
It’s not easy being 2-8, going to sleep on Sunday nights with a division loss fresh in the memory is hard, and sometimes you don’t want to look at the big picture.
But here we are talking about a game where Elijah Moore went off (again), a game where the momentum shifted with the loss of our 4th round rookie Carter. A game where by and large it looked as though AVT had a bounce-back (we’ll see on All-22).
Losses hurt, especially divisional losses. But, this team is going in the right direction. I have more faith in that today than I did yesterday, and that’s what I’m looking for through Sundays this season.
📊 Stat Corner 📉
The Jets are now 0-10 against AFC East opposition over the last two seasons.
Joe Flacco is now 0-5 as the starting Jets QB
The Jets have now lost 7 of their last 8 games against the Dolphins.
A Jets QB has been sacked in 45 straight games now, that’s the longest active streak in the NFL.
Elijah Moore’s 141 receiving yards are the most by a Jets rookie since Rob Moore had 175 in 1990.
📝 Who Said What 📚
JFM on the defensive line performance:
"We got a lot of pressure on him, just sometimes he threw up prayers. Sometimes your prayers are answered."
Coach Saleh on the Jets playing so many young players:
“You want to play youth when you know that youth is going to be special”
Joe Flacco on Elijah Moore’s big game:
“I think Elijah Moore starting to develop into a good wide receiver.”
Saleh on the defense keeping it close:
“You lose by 50 you lose by one, it doesn’t freaking matter.”
🌠 Stars of the game 🌠
For the first week in a long time I thought about handing a star out to a defensive player. Quincy Williams has his limitations but he came in for Jarrad Davis and was all over the field, flying to the ball and leading the unit with 15 tackles, which was 7 more than anyone else. He still gets caught in the run game, but the defense played at a much better level yesterday, even if that wasn’t good enough.
Joe Flacco 🌟
The veteran QB gets my one star for yesterday. I thought he largely played a good game. The fumble really wasnt on him, he got absolutely popped by a player that was supposed to be accounted for and a linebacker jumped his quick read, so he had no choice but to double clutch. He lets it go, it’s an INT, he holds it he gets popped and it’s a fumble, the life of a QB. He finished with 291 yards on 24/39 with 2 scores.
Michael Carter 🌟🌟
Carter is getting by two stars for two reasons. When he was on the field, he looked superb. Good vision and balance, near impossible to bring down on first contact, moving the chains and I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but he’s getting better every week in pass protection. The second reason he’s here is that the Jets didn’t look anywhere near as fluid or balanced after he got injured. This is a 4th round rookie, he’s going to be a good one.
Elijah Moore 🌟🌟🌟
What else can you say about Moore that hasn’t already been said. He got off to a slow start, but he’s certainly making up for that now. He finished the game with 8 receptions for 141 yards and a touchdown. If there was any doubt who WR1 was on this roster, there isn’t anymore. Moore has everything you need outside of the height that some desire. His route-running is as good as I’ve seen for a Jets receiver since Santonio Holmes.
Draft Stock
If you’re yet to take a look at my mock draft from Saturday, head over and check that out by clicking HERE. With the Jets and Seahawks losing and Houston winning, if the season were to end today, the Jets would have two top-5 selections in the NFL draft. The Panthers also lost again yesterday, dropping them to 5-6 on the season which improves that 2nd round pick for the Jets.
As always thank you for reading. Really appreciate you taking the time out of your day to read my Jets rambles. If you haven’t already, please do consider subscribing to ensure you’re the first to receive the newsletters every day.