The Jets were dismantled Sunday by the Bengals, 49-9, putting them back at .500 this season. It’s not easy finding any positives from this one, but we’ll try. Here are the Jets winners and losers from Sunday:
WINNERS
MUHAMMAD WILKERSON: The third-year defensive end continued his breakout season with another sack and an interception. He leads the Jets with seven sacks and looks to be well on his way to the Pro Bowl. The interception was one of the few bright spots in the game for the Jets and gave the offense the ball at the Bengals 30, but they settled for a field goal. Wilkerson also showed some leadership at halftime by standing up and trying to fire up his teammates. He’s the best player on the Jets, and it’s not really close at this point.
ELLIS LANKSTER: A game like this is a chance to give some love to the special teams. Lankster has been a beast on the coverage teams all season for the Jets. He had two special-teams tackles Sunday and always seems to be around the ball. He is not playing much on defense, but his special-teams value will keep him around.
DARRELLE REVIS: His value to the Jets was never more evident than Sunday. This team desperately misses his ability to take away the opponent’s best receiver and allow Rex Ryan to be creative with the rest of his defense. There are 16 million reasons why the Jets had to trade Revis to the Buccaneers. I get it. But man, they sure do miss him.
LOSERS
DEE MILLINER: The man who would be Revis leads off our losers. The Jets took him with the ninth pick overall hoping he would ease the blow of dealing Revis. Yeah, that’s not working out too well. Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton picked on Milliner, completing four passes for 108 yards and a touchdown. He also lucked out when the Bengals had a drop against him. Ryan benched Milliner in the second quarter to stop the bleeding. It’s too early to call Milliner a bust — he’s only played four games — but it certainly does not look good right now.
ANTONIO CROMARTIE: The other man the Jets were counting on when they dealt Revis was Cromartie, hoping he could step into the No. 1 cornerback role against the opponent’s top receiver. Coming off a Pro Bowl season in 2012, it was not an unreasonable expectation. But Cromartie is having an awful season. A.J. Green got him for two 53-yard passes and he was flagged for pass interference on the first Bengals drive that set up their touchdown. You wonder whether Cromartie’s injuries are worse than he or the Jets have let on. It’s hard to imagine his play slipped this bad over one offseason.
REX RYAN: The Jets came out flat and got run over. That falls on the coach. Ryan doesn’t think the team suffered any hangover from last week’s emotional win over the Patriots, but overconfidence may have crept into the locker room after that one. He had no answers calling the defense for the Bengals, generating no pass rush and failing to make any adjustments in coverage to slow the Bengals down.