FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — In the end, it really doesn’t matter what the Jets are saying or who they’re saying it to, or the volume with which the messages are transmitted. What matters is what we see on Sunday afternoons. What matters is the disconnect that has started to permeate their discourse.
And the pathology in the play. That is what matters most this morning, the Jets awaking to a 2-3 record and their toes curling over the edge of the abyss. You don’t hear much talk about the Super Bowl right now. Survival is the more urgent issue.
“I’ve seen enough football to know that it’s too early to start panicking,” running back LaDainian Tomlinson said after the Patriots were done toying with the Jets, 30-21, yesterday at Gillette Stadium. “It’s not time to throw in the towel.”
PHOTOS: PATRIOTS BEAT JETS, 30-21
The Aging Amigos all insist they haven’t complained about offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer’s game plans, haven’t gone over his head in search of more receptions and more relevance? Fine. Give the three reticent receivers the benefit of the doubt on that. But then take a look at what you see on game day. Take a look at how much they’re really buying into the program.
Take a look at the quarterback, who in five weeks has been told this is his team (and was then given game plans that seemed like they were co-authored by the opposing team’s defensive coordinators) and has now been neutered to the point at which the Jets’ brain trust seems hysterically hell-bent to run the ball through imaginary holes and eight-man boxes, all in the name of reclaiming some moral highground-and-pound.
Football players aren’t required to like what’s asked of them week to week, whether it’s reps or role or playing time. Coaches and coordinators don’t consult with their people; in that way it is one of the last bastions where coaches truly hold the power, and the successful ones aren’t afraid to brandish it.
But at some point, the Xs and Os in a brain and in a playbook have to translate. And the truth is that the Jets’ offense should be further along than this right now. It should be more productive. It should score more points. There are times — a lot of times, actually — when it fees like the most dangerous weapon in the Jets’ arsenal is the kickoff return. That’s not a good thing.
“I feel like as much as anything we’re talking about a slow start on our side of the ball,” said tight end Dustin Keller, who is supposed to be Mark Sanchez’s favorite target and caught exactly one ball for 7 yards yesterday. “As the game gets going, we start playing better. We’ve got to be more consistent throughout the whole game.”
The players all dutifully talked about liking the game plan Schottenheimer drew up yesterday, though you have to wonder how that could be when they were facing the 32nd-ranked defense against the pass and decided to rip a few pages out of the 1990 Giants playbook, feeding the crowded middle of the Pats’ defense again and again.
How bad was it? This bad: The Jets had the ball 11 times yesterday. Seven of those possessions resulted in three-and-out. How bad was it? Those seven three-and-outs came against a defense that had produced exactly eight three-and-outs in its first four games.
There was a time when the Jets could get away with this kind of maddening mediocrity from that side of the ball — but that was when they were clearly in possession of an elite defense. That isn’t the case any more. And so something has to change. Quick.
All through August we were told that the training wheels were coming off, that Sanchez would be expected to act like a franchise quarterback and not just be paid like one. At 2-3, there will be packs of wolves baying at Sanchez, and he does deserve to take a few hits.
But he isn’t a lone assassin here. The other members of this offense can all pledge unity and act publicly like frat brothers, but what we see on Sundays is something else entirely. By next Monday, we’d better see something different against the Dolphins, because the coordinator and his workers are officially on the clock.
They’ve reached the crossroads already. You would have thought that might have come around Christmas Day. Not Columbus Day.