When the three hours and eight minutes of utter ugliness was over Saturday night at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C., when Jets 9, Panthers 3 was mercifully in the books, Jets right tackle Damien Woody offered up the best idea of all.
“This is one of those games where offensively you just want to take the ball and bury it, bury the game tape with it and move on to the next one,” Woody said. “Fortunately this one doesn’t count.”
Fortunately, Woody is right. It is only preseason.
But still, should there be alarm that Mark Sanchez was 5-of-12 for 12 yards and was sacked twice thanks to poor pass protection?
Should there be alarm that the Jets produced all of seven first downs and 112 yards in total offense?
The Jets say no, preferring to look at the performance as an aberration because they had a short turnaround from their preseason opener Monday against the Giants, they broke camp on Friday and they didn’t game-plan for the Panthers.
“Nothing alarming; it wasn’t our best night,” Sanchez said.
“No excuses,” receiver Braylon Edwards said. “We didn’t play well, but I wouldn’t take anything from this game. Put your judgment on next week. Watch that game. Don’t take anything out of this game. We weren’t trying to show anything. It was mostly just your basic stuff.
“This week coming up we’ll probably try to get after the Redskins and treat it more like a regular-season game.”
The Jets’ next preseason game comes Friday against the Redskins at the New Meadowlands Stadium and figures to provide a much better test for the entire team because it’s the third exhibition game, the one in which the starters play the most.
The Jets, too, likely will game-plan for the Redskins, so it will simulate a regular-season game to a degree.
“We’ll come out next week and make a statement in the right direction,” Woody said. “We definitely want to come up with a better outing.”
Woody said the feeling on offense was like being “in quicksand” against Carolina.
“Things are just not going your way,” he said. “You have to fight your way out of it.”
Pass protection was an issue, with left tackle D’Brickashaw Ferguson and tight end Ben Hartsock appearing to give up first-quarter sacks to Carolina’s Everette Brown and head coach Rex Ryan calling out guard Matt Slauson for poor protection.
Sanchez seemed to lack timing with his receivers at several key moments. Afterward, he pointed to poor production on first downs leaving third-and-long situations as the problem, but it seemed like more than that. Sanchez wasn’t sharp with check-down passes and led the Jets to only 33 yards of offense on four possessions.
Sanchez nearly threw an interception while trying to force a pass to Edwards on the first series. That came on a third-and-10 play.
In his third series, Sanchez overthrew Edwards on a deep route on first down. A short time later, he was high on an attempt to Santonio Holmes on third-and-9.
“We didn’t get the chance to game-plan for the team like we will next week a bit,” Sanchez said. “We’ll be in a better rhythm and expect certain plays coming in. We’ll know what [the Redskins] are doing or at least we’ll have a better idea than [against the Panthers].”
Accentuating the offense’s problems was its lack of killer instinct when the special teams forced turnovers and delivered great field position.
The Jets started drives on the Carolina 35 and 12 and were able to come away only with Nick Folk field goals on both possessions.
“When you get chances like that, those are gifts and you have to take advantage,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez, trying to explain the Jets’ struggles, lamented the “quick turnaround” off the Giants game and the breaking of training camp for the poor performance.
But he was quick to add: “We don’t accept a performance like this. We need to focus on next week and take it seriously.”