Screwed by the refs

Edition #489

Morning.

I wish they’d have bought us dinner first. Saleh can’t say anything in the post-game and he avoided the questions, but make no mistake about it, the Jets got screwed last night by an officiating crew whose bank accounts should be checked.

Let me just say this, good job by the Jets making adjustments. Hackett opened up the gameplan, Zach was allowed to throw, and throwing for around 250 yards and 2 touchdowns is a huge improvement, not just a little step forward, that’s a giant leap forward considering the Chiefs have a pretty good defence over in Kansas.

We wanted Wilson to give us a chance to win, and he did exactly that last night. It’s a shame about the fumbled snap, but that happens. He owned it after the game saying that can’t happen, and that shows good maturity and good personal growth.

I agree with Saleh when he said if Zach plays like that….the Jets are going to win a lot of games. I know it’s tough at 1-3, but last night’s game restored some faith. Now, we need to see if we can get some consistency.

If this is what football is in 2023…I’m not sure I want to watch it.

In the minds of the officiating crew, this is a hold (although he threw the flag very late). This is about as weak as you get, corners and receivers hand fight continuously, and if you watched red-zone yesterday, you’d have seen a hundred examples of plays like this where no flags were thrown

But this is not holding. If the Chiefs tackle wanted Jermaine Johnson’s jersey so badly, he should have been made to shell out the $150 like the rest of us.

This is why good teams can stay good and teams who have been historically bad struggle to break free.

The officials have a ridiculous bias…whether it’s conscious or unconscious, but in a game where the Jets were 17-point underdogs, we lost by 3 largely thanks to multiple blown calls by the officials.

Can’t have the Chiefs losing in front of Taylor Swift can ya Roger.

With that out of the way, let’s take a look at some positives.

I wrote a piece for the Jets UK website last week about the offensive line and you can read that HERE. I argued that it was trending up and in particular, the right side of the line looked dominant.

Well, last night I thought they were exceptional. Zach Wilson had multiple clean pockets to work from and there were some real holes in the ground game. I never ever want to see injuries to any player, but the Brown injury has been a blessing in disguise.

Becton continues to improve at LT, Joe Tippmann just looks like an NFL pro at RG and AVT has taken to RT as though he’s played there his entire life. The arrow is pointing way up for that unit and considering this was just their 2nd game together, that’s an exciting proposition.

Credit to the players, but also credit to Keith Carter who’s had to juggle the linemen. I’m interested to see the numbers on their blocking later today, and I’ll be including those in the newsletter tomorrow.

Let’s just talk about Zach for a minute. I would argue that was his best game as a Jet, considering the opposition and how he moved the offence.

For the first time in a long time, the Jets weren’t predictable. They threw some wrinkles on first down and we saw some different personnel groupings, hell when Gipson gets a carry and Ruckert gets a catch, you know Hackett has paid attention to the criticism.

Zach wasn’t perfect..but after a game like that, I’m not going to focus on any of the niggles. We need to focus on that progress. His footwork was better than I’ve ever seen it and his ball placement was miles ahead of where it’s been. He threw a number of absolute dots, including the touchdown to Lazard. Standing in the pocket and delivering a ball like this, if this is Zach Wilson 2.0, then I’m excited about it.

You also saw that real humility on the sideline. Cameras picked him up talking to Thomas Morestead saying "I lost the game. It's my fault bro". The players all rallied around him after that, and I loved seeing that. I know he has his critics, and I’ve been as critical as anyone, but Zach Wilson is not the reason we lost. that game. He brought us back from the dead after that horror first quarter. Even LeBron James came out to support Zach with a post on social about one play not defining the game.

What did he complete? 72% of his passes for 245 yards and 2 touchdowns. You did well kid, keep that head up. That was a top-10 defence, now you need to build on it.

Finally, I think we need to give some credit to the defence. Look at what they held Mahomes to above, and had it not been for an awful call they’d have 3 interceptions instead of two.

It’s hard to play the Chiefs, they’re an outstanding offence with the best QB in the league. It’s hard to get a pass rush as you’re constantly worried about Mahomes breaking free, so you need to be disciplined.

There were some issues in defending the run, but again, it’s hard to defend this offence, you have to sacrifice somewhere and when you walk out of the stadium and you’ve held the Chiefs to 23 points, you’ve done a pretty good job.

I know this isn’t the 85 Bears. Of course, it isn’t, and that comment has hung over the Jet’s defence early in the season, but I do think the unit played well considering they were facing one of the most explosive offences in football over the last 5 years, and the officials as well.

The Jets were able to crawl out of the first quarter hole because of the play on offence and the work of the defence, at one point the Chiefs had 6 possessions that ended:

Safety
Interception
Field Goal
Interception
Punt
Punt

Would I have loved them to get that final stop and hand the ball back, of course. But these things happen.

But I will say this, if we want to keep the season alive, we need to go into Denver and pick up a W.