It seemed as if it was all build ing to a magical finish, the kind of game-winning drive that could be bragged about over the next two weeks, making Mark Sanchez sound like the second coming of John Elway, if not Joe Namath.
Down five with less than two minutes to play, Sanchez had marched the Jets offense 43 yards to a first down at the Dolphins 12, a perfect pass to tight end Dustin Keller covering 16 yards on fourth-and-10 from the 28 exciting the home crowd at Giants Stadium.
“We felt like we were winning this game,” Sanchez would say later. “No doubt.”
But after two runs for four yards and a costly sack that lost seven, the Jets faced fourth-and-13 from the 15. Instead of pulling out a heroic finish, Sanchez searched desperately for an open receiver before launching a pass to the back of the end zone for Jerricho Cotchery. Three Dolphins defenders converged and knocked the ball away along with any chance of a Jets victory.
“You just scramble and try to give your guys a chance,” Sanchez said. “Unfortunately we didn’t come down with it.”
If the Jets had scored, it would have sweetened a game where the special teams allowed two kickoff returns for touchdowns, a Jets fumble was returned for another score and the offense and Sanchez waffled between being erratic and dramatic. But the 30-25 defeat leaves the Jets 4-4 entering a bye week after a 3-0 start and feeling like the glass is half empty instead of half full.
“It’s a huge loss for us,” said Rex Ryan.
The Jets made enough mistakes to do what they didn’t want to do: put the game in the hands of their rookie quarterback. It wasn’t what they had in mind when they talked about simplifying things for him. But after Ted Ginn Jr. returned two kickoffs 100 and 101 yards, and Jason Taylor returned a Shonn Greene fumble 48 yards for another score, the Jets put the pressure on Sanchez.
For a while, it looked as though Sanchez would be the hero. He ran for a 1-yard touchdown on a bootleg. Then he fired a pass to Braylon Edwards that the receiver somehow caught between two defenders for a 19-yard score, and there was another 16-yard TD pass to Keller that made it 30-25 with 5:52 to play.
But looming large were two ill-advised, failed two-point conversation attempts, coming after the final two touchdowns. The first two-point conversation was ruined when a fade pass to Edwards was too low, and the second never had a chance because Sanchez’s pass to Keller was wide.
But blame Ryan as much as Sanchez. If the Jets had simply kicked extra points, they would have needed only a field goal on the final drive to tie. Instead Ryan gambled way too early, saying “we felt good about it at that time,” though the first failed attempt came in the third quarter.
Sanchez (20 of 35 for 265 yards, 2 TDs and 0 INT) wouldn’t blame his coach or teammates.
“There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing than trying to come back and win a game on a Sunday after Halloween on the first day of November,” he said, “just trying to win a game against the Miami Dolphins at our stadium, fourth down, give me the ball and next time I’m going to get it done.”
The good thing about Sanchez is there’s always a next time. But the Jets’ season is becoming a hodge-podge of inconsistency on offense, defense, special teams and on the sidelines. Sanchez isn’t ready to be John Elway, which is why mistakes in other areas can be disastrous. Yesterday it led to the quarterback having to win a game he couldn’t.