New York Jets 20-23 Buffalo Bills

Edition #721

Good morning!

With a chance to take the lead in the AFC East the Jets couldn’t get out of their own way in a devastating 23-20 loss to the Bills.

Jeff Ulbrich went to 0-1 as a head coach and some familiar bad habits showed up again. One week is too quick to judge, but there’s still a lot of work to be done if the Jets hope to make the playoffs for the first time since 2010.

"This was a golden opportunity. Some games you win in the NFL, and some games you give away. This was a giveaway." said Aaron Rodgers after the game after he saw another late comeback attempt thwarted by an interception.

For the first time in his career Rodgers has a losing record after 6 games of the season and the Jets have now lost three straight games by a combined 10 points. The margins are fine in the NFL and the Jets like to remind us of that every single week.

I’m not ready to call time on the season as there were some really good moments. The Jets managed nearly 400 yards of offence under new play-caller Todd Downing but went just 1-4 in the red-zone drills. Of course had Tyron Smith not been called for a holding penalty it would have been 2-4 and had Rodgers just floated a pass to a wide open Conklin it would have been 3-4. These are the mistakes that are killing the Jets.

It’s not unreasonable to suggest that the Jets should be sitting here at 4-2 if they just did the simple things consistently.

The officiating last night was truly abysmal and it was abysmal across the board. 22 flags for over 200 yards of penalties, 11 for 94 on the Bills, 11 for 110 on the Jets. People don’t pay good hard-earned money to watch the zebras toss their laundry and if the NFL keeps going this way it’ll lose a lot of viewers. As a spectacle it was atrocious. There were awful calls on both sides and while the Bills can easily forget it having walked away with a win, that one stings.

The Jets were able to run the ball last night and I actually liked some of the outside zone design and the majority of the positive blocking came by the receivers, both Lazard and Williams had key blocks that sprung big gains. Breece ended up with 100+ yards and 6.3 yards a carry and Downing actually sent in Allen on a near goal-line situation and he did his job.

If you said to me that Aaron Rodgers through for nearly 300 yards on multiple touchdowns, Breece Hall ran for 100+ yards and the Jets had Lazard and Wilson both over 100 receiving yards, I’d have said we scored 30+ points and walked away with an easy victory. But this is the Jets, there are no easy victories. What I will say is that we brought in Aaron Rodgers to win games like that.

"We are by no means out of this thing. By no means," Ulbrich said. "I know the character of that locker room. I know the way we will respond. ... We have to start stacking these weeks of exceptional preparation. I promise you it will start to pay off on Sundays."

• Is it time to start worrying about Greg Zuerlein? It was windy at Metlife, they put out a warning…but two more missed field goals and he’s now converting just 66.7% of his field goal attempts. He missed one against Denver, he missed one against New England and he’s missed two more against the Bills. Denver we were fortunate to squeak through and in a one point game that miss could have been costly. New England didn’t matter but last night we lost by three with 6 points left off the board by Greg. He was fantastic last year hitting 92.1% of his field goals, but he needs to improve. Austin Seibert who we released in August is hitting 93.8% in Washington.