You don’t have to be Vince Lombardi to figure out what went wrong for the Jets on Sunday in their 38-13 loss to the Titans.
There were basically four issues — Geno Smith’s first turnover, his second turnover, his third turnover and then his fourth turnover.
“We’ve got to quit turning the ball over,” coach Rex Ryan said Monday in a conference call with reporters. “That’s killing us right now. It wasn’t obvious until this past game. The reason it wasn’t obvious is because we played real good red-zone defense. That wasn’t the case yesterday.”
Yes, the Titans scored 28 points off the turnovers and maybe you could argue the defense should be able to keep them out of the end zone even on a short field, but Smith is the main culprit from that loss whether Ryan wants to admit it or not.
Ryan gave a harsh assessment of his rookie quarterback, but said he’s not ready to bench Smith yet.
“It’s not a thought at this point right now,” Ryan said. “Not a thought.”
Smith has 11 turnovers through his first four games, tied with Giants quarterback Eli Manning for the most in the NFL. In fact, the Giants are the only team in the NFL that has more turnovers than Smith does.
On Sunday, he threw two interceptions and had two fumbles. Smith owned up to his mistakes and said he is working in practice to eliminate them.
“I think if we take care of the ball, if we take care of those penalties, I think we have a fighting chance,” Smith said. “It’s something that we have to clean up, we’re going to emphasize it. As far as those turnovers go, they have to stop now.”
After the loss on Sunday, Smith went to several of his teammates and apologized for his errors, vowing it will never happen again.
“I felt that I owed the defense an apology,” he said. “They work their butts off to be one of the best in the league and they pride themselves on not giving up points. Whenever you turn the ball over and they lead to scores, and they’ve bailed us out time-and-time again so far, but whenever you turn it over that many times its hard for those guys to go out there and do their jobs. It’s a short field. I just wanted to talk to those guys and let them know that I was aware of my mistakes and that I wanted to clean them up and that I will clean them up.”
Smith has a passer rating of 68.6 — only Christian Ponder, Brandon Weeden, Josh Freeman and Blaine Gabbert are worse. All four of those quarterbacks have either lost their starting spot or are in jeopardy of doing so. But Ryan insisted he believes in Smith, although he sounded like a man losing patience.
“You can’t buy experience,” Ryan said. “With that being said, we still have to do a much better job with Geno in particular, ‘I have to protect the football at all costs’. You can’t be nonchalant about it. You have to protect the ball. You can talk about it until you’re blue in the face. But when it happens, now you see it over and over. That’s the way we can improve.”
The Jets coaches want Smith to be more careful holding the ball. He has a bad habit of holding it with one hand, just like his predecessor Mark Sanchez. They are also trying to instill in Smith the notion he no longer has to make every play himself like he may have had to do in college.
“It’s also been an eye-opener for me, allowing me to understand that my role on this team is different from what I’ve been used to. I’m not asked to score as many points,” Smith said. “I have a great defense and we can rely on those guys. I have great guys up front, a great running game and that’s something as well that I can rely on. As long as I take care of the ball, just keep managing the game, just keep us in good situations, we’ll have a chance.”