Jaguars Slap Around Pathetic Jets

JAGUARS 31 - JETS 12 

The Jets looked every bit the part of a rebuilding, undisciplined football team against a Super Bowl contender in the Jacksonville Jaguars, Sunday as the Jags pounded the Jets 31-12 to send Gang Green to 1-3.  

The game was a complete miss-match as the Jaguars toyed with the Jets from pillar to post.  In fact, the game felt over as soon as Jacksonville opened the scoring with a Josh Lambo field goal that completed a long opening drive that ate up eight and a half minutes.

There were no adjustments by the Jets coaching staff, no fight by the players, and no chance. After a week where Todd Bowles got racked over the coals by fans for not preparing his football team for the Baker Mayfield factor last week in Cleveland, his defense couldn’t slow down Blake Bortles on Sunday.

Bortles had one of the best games of his career, completing 29-of-38 for a career high 388 yards passing and two touchdowns. At one point Bortles was 16-of-17 going into halftime, with his only incompletion coming on a throw away.

Overall, Jacksonville rolled up 503 yards on the Jets, and held the football for nearly 40 minutes. To add insult to injury, Jaguars head coach Doug Marrone decided to stick it to the Jets when he scored a last second touchdown with the game well in hand. 

As Leonard Williams said during his post game comments, “If teams are disrespecting us, it must say something about us.”

It certainly did on Sunday.

Anyone hoping for Jets offensive coordinator Jeremy Bates to be more creative against the Jaguars, could forget as soon as the Jets first possession of the game.

Offensively, the Jets never got anything going.

Of their first seven possessions the Jets gave up a safety, punted four times and were turned over on downs twice. By the time New York finally scored, the game was pretty much well in hand at 18-3 with less than five minutes to go in the third quarter.

Sam Darnold struggled, but a lot of that had to do with the poor execution of the offense as a whole.  Darnold spent more time running away from Calais Campbell and Malik Jackson, as the Jaguars dominated the Jets offensive line. New York couldn’t establish a running game, and Darnold’s wide receivers again failed him with key drops in big moments.

Overall, Darnold was 17-of-34 for 167 yards and a touchdown. The only positive was that he didn’t throw a pick, but there were two instances where Jalen Ramsey nearly had a couple of picks.

With each three-and-out, and each incompletion, one could see the growing concern and confusion growing on Darnold’s face. It’s up to the Jets coaching staff to help slow things down for him. Since the opener in Detroit, Darnold has completed only 53 percent of his passes, thrown two touchdowns and four interceptions. He needs help, but it just isn’t there right now.