For the past few weeks, the vibes have been nothing but great for the New York Jets offense. New York buried those good vibes in 60 minutes of near-hapless offensive football against the Denver Broncos.
The Jets’ offensive performance in their 10-9 loss to the Broncos on Sunday was, in the words of quarterback Aaron Rodgers, “not good enough.”
That’s an understatement. The Jets’ defense did a remarkable job. The Broncos had just 168 yards of total offense. Rookie quarterback Bo Nix looked unremarkable and at one point in the second half had negative passing yardage.
The defense did all it could do. Rodgers agreed with the sentiment.
"When your defense holds them to 10, you've got to win the game 100% of the time,” Rodgers said to reporters after the game. “That's on the offense, that's on me. Not good enough."
Rodgers finished with a respectable 225 yards. But he was also sacked five times. The Jets’ running game was rendered practically non-existent.
The Broncos even handed the Jets a gift late in the game — a missed field goal by Wil Lutz that put the Jets in remarkably good field position for a game-winning field goal of their own.
The best play of the drive was an incomplete pass to wide receiver Mike Williams, which led to a pass interference call and gained the Jets 15 yards and moved them into Denver territory.
The drive stalled and New York handed Greg Zuerlein a 50-yard field goal attempt in sub-par weather, and he missed.
But, it’s almost impossible to put the loss on him, considering he scored all of the Jets’ points on Sunday. The veteran kicker had field goals of 23, 35 and 40 yards.
For a quarterback like Rodgers, one with a Super Bowl ring and four Most Valuable Player awards, a bad day at the office happens. But, exactly how often?
That’s the remarkable part about Sunday’s loss. Per ESPN, it was just the fifth time in Rodgers’ NFL career that he led an offense that failed to score a touchdown, including the playoffs. The even crazier part is that in two of those four previous games he didn’t finish the contest due to an injury.
For those wondering that’s a span of 237 regular-season starts and 21 playoff starts. That’s 258 games combined.
It was an incredible offensive meltdown, aided by 13 New York penalties, many of which stymied offensive drives.
It’s an offensive failure Rodgers hopes never happens again with the Jets.
