Jets are No Shows in Ugly Loss to Eagles

EAGLES 24
JETS 17

Coming into play on Sunday the Jets never beat the Philadelphia Eagles in their franchises history. After Sunday, New York is still 0-for-forever against Philly.

For the Kool-aid drinkers, this was a game that snapped everyone back to reality. In one respect, a lot of people were going gaga over the Jets 2-0 start. On the other hand, everyone was ready to fire Chip Kelly after Philadelphia's 0-2 start. Oh, how football can provide balance from one week to another.

Bottom line is the Jets looked sloppy against an Eagles team that isn't going to remind anyone of the Andy Reid/Donavan McNabb Eagles of the last decade. The Eagles are a bad football team and the Jets showed everyone that even with a 2-0 start, they are not that good either.

The Jets turned the football over four times and let Darren Sproles and Ryan Matthews run all over them on Sunday afternoon, especially in the first half.

Most of all the Jets offense looked sluggish, slow and boring for 60 minutes. Perhaps the loss of Eric Decker and Chris Ivory had a major impact in the final results on Sunday, or maybe it is the simple fact that Chain Gailey's game plan was too predictable and dull. Rarely did the Jets try to extend the field on the Eagles, settling more for dink and dunk passes to Bilal Powell, Quincy Enunwa and Jeff Cumberland.

Whenever Fitzpatrick tried to rear back and throw, Eagles defenders were all over him, getting their hands up into the air to knock the ball down. And to think the Jets didn't once adjust and try to move Fitzpatrick out of the pocket?!

Sloppy, ugly, downright awful.

Right from the get-go things were not looking up for Gang Green. The Eagles, who had only one first down in the first half of their game against Dallas last week, were churning out yards against the Jets vaunted defense on their opening drive. An 11-play drive that featured both Matthews and Sproles eating up chunks of yards set up Philadelphia with an early field goal and 3-0 lead. The Eagles had four first downs on the drive and ran for 43 yards on the drive.

At the beginning of the second quarter, Sproles put the game away. Yes, he put it away in the second quarter. Sproles took a Jets punt, ducked around a couple Jets defenders, and had nothing but daylight down the sidelines for an Eagles touchdown and a 10-0 lead.

The Sproles punt return broke the game wide open for Philadelphia, and they made sure to pore it on a clueless Jets team that didn't know what hit him. Midway through the quarter the Eagles put together their best drive of the day, when Bradford hit a streaking Ryan Matthews in stride for a 23-yard touchdown pass to make it 17-0. Bradford for 3-for-4 on the drive, including a 21-yard strike to Zach Ertz that set the Eagles up in Jets territory.

Then, one of the dumbest plays in Jets history occurred; a play so inane that some think it challenges the buttfumble from three years ago. I disagree.

That being said, after catching a pass from Ryan Fitzpatrick, receiver Brandon Marshall tired to lateral the ball behind him to a Jet player who was coming up from behind. However the lateral totally failed. As Marshall was coming down to the turf, the ball popped up in the air and the Eagles picked it up. After a wasted Jets challenge, the Eagles had the football back at the Jets 36-yard line. Philadelphia punched it in after a seven play drive, with Sproles culminating the Eagles scoring with a 1-yard plunge to make it 24-0.

While the Jets tired to make a game of it, watching their offense work down 24-0 was like watching molasses in January. Fitzpatrick was overthrowing receivers or throwing the ball into the ready arms of Eagles defenders. Whenever the Jets tired to run the football, there were no lanes for them to run in.

The Jets even had a 16-play 81 yard drive that ate up eight minutes of action that was pure torture to watch. Either Fitzpatrick threw an incompletion, or dunked it down low for a very short gain. Somehow the Jets found a way to convert four different third down attempts before they finally scored to cut the deficit to 24-14.

What made maters worse is that the Jets actually had a chance if they only played competent football down the stretch. Philadelphia gave the Jets the football on two separate occasions down the stretch, with plenty of time to go in the game, and each time the Jets turned it over on a interception by Fitzpatrick, icing a horrendous defeat.

Sure Fitzpatrick should remain the Jets starter, if for no other reason then the Jets don't have anyone on the roster capable of being any better at quarterback. The Jets need to get Decker and Ivory back, because they showed the NFL world that they are too top heavy in talent, with almost no depth if someone goes down with an injury. If this were the real Jets on Sunday -- it's going to get ugly really, really fast.