FOXBOROUGH — Kyle Wilson didn’t want to come out and say it, but Antonio Cromartie had no such worries about his pocketbook.
The Jets thought the third-down interference penalty on Wilson in overtime yesterday was a bad call, and Cromartie wasn’t afraid to come out and say it.
“If the front judge didn’t see it, then I don’t know why the back judge threw [the flag],” Cromartie said in a downbeat Jets locker room following the 29-26 loss to the Patriots. “It looked like it was a clean play.”
The play was decisive, because for a brief moment after Tom Brady’s pass to Aaron Hernandez fell incomplete it looked as if the Jets had forced a punt and given themselves a chance to win the game with just a field goal under the NFL’s new regular-season overtime rules.
The play happened right in front of side judge Dave Wyant, who ruled an incompletion, but two full beats later back judge Steve Freeman came running up from at least 20 yards downfield to flag Wilson for interfering with the New England tight end.
That the questionable call came right in front of the Patriots’ bench wasn’t lost on the Jets, who thought the entire sequence was suspicious. It proved costly, too, as Brady used the second chance to produce what turned out to be the game-winning field goal.
“It is what it is,” said Wilson, the former first-round pick who has moved into a starting role in the wake of Darrelle Revis’ season-ending knee injury. “I don’t comment on officiating. I just move on to the next play. I thought I did what I was supposed to do, which is just playing.”
But the longer Wilson thought about the play and the puzzlingly delayed and confused reaction from the officials, the more he struggled to keep his feelings to himself.
“Obviously, I didn’t think I fouled him,” Wilson said. “I know I’ve fouled people before, but I didn’t think that was a foul.”
The sequence was especially frustrating for the Jets’ secondary because Cromartie, Wilson and especially nickel back Isaiah Trufant had done a terrific job bottling up the Patriots’ fleet of dangerous receivers and frustrating Brady until the last few minutes of regulation and overtime.
Cromartie practically suffocated Brandon Lloyd, Brady’s favorite target and alleged deep threat, who finished with just one catch for six yards despite being thrown to eight times. Wes Welker had a quiet 54 yards on five receptions against Trufant, and Brady finished with a pedestrian (for him) 259 passing yards.
“We played well, but we just didn’t play well enough,” Cromartie said. “That’s frustrating, but there were still a lot of positive signs and there’s still a lot of season left. And we get to see them again.”