Ryan burned after Jets'challenges go up in smoke

Dustin Keller was sure the play was dead.

The Jets' tight end had caught a short pass from Mark Sanchez at the Green Bay 43-yard line and was quickly tackled by Green Bay cornerback Charles Woodson.

The pair tumbled to the turf, their hands intertwined as each tried to take possession of the ball with 10:34 remaining in the fourth quarter.

It didn't matter to Keller that Woodson stumbled to his feet with the ball in his hands. Keller thought he was down. End of story.

The officials, however, didn't see it that way, ruling it an interception.

And there was nothing Rex Ryan could say or do.

The Jets' coach had burned his two challenges in the first half, leaving his team - which trailed 3-0 at the time - without another chance to object.

He first threw the red challenge flag in the second quarter after Brad Smith fumbled at the Packers' 29 after being tackled by Frank Zombo and C.J. Wilson. Tramon Williams recovered the ball and returned it to the Green Bay 34. The call was upheld, though, and the Jets were charged with their first timeout.

Ryan used his second challenge 10 minutes later after Williams ripped the ball out of Jerricho Cotchery's hands while the two were on the ground. The ruling that Williams had intercepted the pass was upheld, and the Jets were charged another timeout. More important, Ryan was out of challenges.

"From my understanding of the rules," Cotchery said, "when both guys have their hands on the ball and they hit the ground, it goes to the offense. So I had the ball in my hands once we hit the ground, I relaxed, the refs saw it and he ended up ripping it out of my hands at the last second. I don't know how it looked in the replay booth, but obviously, they got the turnover."

Keller thought he should have been ruled down by contact, too.

"There's nothing you can do about it now," the tight end said. "Just learn from your mistakes. And you shouldn't be in that position, anyway, for it to come to lose like that."

Ryan said he felt confident throwing both flags, but in retrospect, he said he shouldn't have challenged the Smith fumble "because it was too hard to tell." (The replay did indicate that it was a fumble.) When asked if he wished he had saved a challenge for the Keller turnover, Ryan said: "It was a very similar play to what happened with the Jerricho one before. It was almost identical. I'm sure that would have been Green Bay's ball, anyway."

Perhaps, but the Jets never had the chance to find out.

"It takes the wind out of you a little bit," Smith said of the calls that didn't go the Jets' way. "You expect it to be called a certain way and it wasn't. It stinks. We shouldn't have put ourselves in that position in the first place. But it is what it is."