Jets, Joe Flacco brought back to Earth by Bengals
Joe Flacco #19 of the Jets loses the ball during the second quarter on a hit from Trey Hendrickson #91 of the Cincinnati Bengals at MetLife Stadium on Sunday, Sept. 25, 2022. Credit: Jim McIsaac
The Jets had no magic or miracle comeback on Sunday. Instead, it was more of a return to normalcy.
Robert Saleh’s team came crashing back to Earth after its thrilling win last week in Cleveland. The Jets were booed often, the MetLife Stadium crowd again chanted for Mike White to replace Joe Flacco, and the fans left early.
The Jets played a sloppy, undisciplined game and were beaten by the Bengals, 27-12. They’re still looking for their first two-game winning streak under Saleh, their second-year coach.
The Jets had breakdowns on defense and meltdowns on the sideline. They dropped passes. The offensive line didn’t give Flacco enough protection. They had two unnecessary- roughness penalties on defense and an unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty on offense. They also lost the turnover battle 4-1 and gave themselves no chance to win the game.
“It’s frustrating,” Saleh said. “It’s part of everything that I keep telling you guys about. It is frustrating as hell.”
Flacco, who threw four touchdown passes last week against the Browns, wasn’t sharp at all in what likely was his last start. The expectation is that Zach Wilson will make his season debut next week in Pittsburgh. He has been rehabbing from a knee injury, and Saleh said he’s “expecting” him to be cleared.
“We’ll evaluate it all tomorrow,” Saleh said. “Expecting . . . Until the doctors say so, I’m going to just say he’s being evaluated.”
The Jets (1-2) didn’t get in the end zone against the Bengals (1-2), who haven’t looked like the team that went to the Super Bowl last season. The Jets trailed 20-6 in the first half and 27-9 early in the third quarter. All they could muster were four field goals by Greg Zuerlein.
Flacco, who was 28-for-52 for 285 yards and two interceptions, also lost two fumbles and was sacked four times. He heard the boos and chants for White.
“They’re here to watch football but they’re here to watch their team win,” Flacco said. “You get the frustration, but at the same time, it’s a two-score game, and if we put one in the end zone . . . We have more important things to worry about than listening to that stuff. It’s our job to go and play football. That kind of stuff is going to happen here and there.”
This wasn’t all on Flacco. The defense didn’t make stops early and continues to give up explosive plays.
Tyler Boyd scored on a 56-yard catch-and-run after a missed tackle by safety Jordan Whitehead at the end of the first quarter. On that drive, John Franklin-Myers was flagged for unnecessary roughness for hitting Joe Burrow late on a third-down incompletion. That extended the drive that led to the big play.
After the score, Quinnen Williams got into it with defensive line coach Aaron Whitecotton. Williams said he wanted the coaching staff to let the front four rush Burrow and not send seven, as they did on that play.
“That came out of me to just challenge my D-line coach,” Williams said. “Like, ‘Yo, put it on our back, Coach.’ You know what we got in this room, four-man rush, we don’t need these extra blitzes.”
The Jets sacked Burrow only three times after he was sacked an NFL-high 13 times through two weeks. He completed 23 of 36 passes for 275 yards and three touchdowns, two in the first quarter. His third, a 5-yarder to a wide-open Ja’Marr Chase, was the result of a communication breakdown between Sauce Gardner and Quincy Williams.
“The mistakes, we can’t have,” cornerback D.J. Reed said. “Penalties on third down, mental errors — we’re not even giving a team a chance to beat us. We’re just beating ourselves.”
Reed said the Jets’ defense, coaches included, need to meet and hash out the issues.
“We got to get it straightened out,” he said. “Tell them the dilemmas, what we’re struggling with, what’s working, what’s not working.”
Tight end Tyler Conklin was the Jets’ leading receiver with eight catches for 84 yards. Garrett Wilson had six grabs for 60 yards. He left the game in the first half with a rib injury but returned. Corey Davis caught only two passes, but he had a huge penalty in the end zone for unsportsmanlike conduct after grabbing Eli Apple’s facemask early in the fourth quarter.
“It hurts,” Davis said. “It’s not like I did it on purpose. I just lost my cool. I can’t let that happen.”
The Jets were down 15 at the time. After they erased a 13-point deficit with 1:55 left to beat Cleveland, a comeback couldn’t be ruled out. The Bengals gave them some life, but the Jets suffocated themselves.
They drove to the Bengals’ 14, and a touchdown there would have made things interesting, but the Davis penalty killed them. On third-and-21 from the 29, Wilson made a diving catch for a 15-yard gain. On fourth down, Trey Hendrickson beat backup left tackle Conor McDermott and sacked Flacco, who fumbled.
“Our vets are making critical mistakes at critical times,” Saleh said. “It’s got to get fixed.”
There’s a lot of things that need fixing.
Al Iannazzone covers the Jets for Newsday after spending nearly two decades on the NBA beat with Knicks and Nets.
