If you said you knew the Jets’ defense would play this well this soon, you’re a liar.
The New York Jets performed brilliantly today–at least on defense– in a 26-14 shellacing of the winless, Carson Palmer-less Cincinnati Bengals. It was as dominating a performance as any in the past three years of Eric Mangini’s leadership and was effective enough to catapult the New York Jets squarely into playoff contention. At 3-2, with two winnable games coming up on the schedule, the Jets can certainly claim to be in the hunt, especially because the offense, today, was mediocre, at best, with three ugly turnovers, yet they still won.
Before we get into the details of the game, though, we should take a moment for sober reflection. We should remind ourselves (by slugging our best friend in the arm) that we need to have a little perspective. It’s not time to buy Super Bowl tickets just yet. Yes, the Bengals have been very competitive against some of the NFL’s best, forcing the Giants into overtime and nearly tying the Cowboys in the fourth quarter. Yes, the Bengals have also played decently on defense. But, it was the Bengals, after all, an 0-4 team more associated with the heights of the penitentiary system than the rarefied air of the football playoff system. And, they were starting a guy at QB who had only started four other times in his career. Still, as Brett Favre said elegantly after the game “A win is a win.”
But, even in the absence of Carson Palmer who did not play, the Jets’ defense was still impressive. Cincinnati’s offense, with two pro-bowl receivers, only completed one, count ‘em, one impact drive in the entire game (if you don’t count the garbage time drive when the game was out of reach). That’s pretty dominant. Even if you count both drives, the Cubs only produced two impact drives in four quarters of football. The NFL average is 4.7! The Jets’ D gave up 171 total net yards, only 43 on the ground (on 21 rushing plays). To tell you how badly dominated the Cincy offense was, allow me to point out that the Bengals’ quarterback was their leading ground gainer and fourth leading receiver catching one of his own passes.
The game began with a typical, post bye-week kluge. On the third play from scrimmage, Favre was blind-sided and the ball was scooped up by the avian-named Ndukwe for a Cincy td. That was about the only highlight for the Bengals who pretty much accomplished nothing else on offense for the rest of the game. Still, the Jets started out in a 7-0 hole. Undaunted, they then took the ball for twelve of the next fourteen minutes and finished the quarter even at 7-7. Still, that tying touchdown would not come easily and it would signal that the Jets’ offense was not going to be particularly crisp on this fine afternoon. There would be two touchdowns aborted by penalties on the same series before Thomas Jones finally took a little swing pass into the end zone.
From that point on, it would be all Jets. The one exception was a two-minute drive at the end of the second quarter that exposed a few of the Jets’ defense’s remaining weaknesses. One, is that they were twice unprepared for the Bengals’ offense to line up and snap the ball quickly. That cost them the touchdown as a QB sneak by Fitzgerald managed to push into the end zone just before the half ended. The other, was that there was no general on the field to call timeout when they weren’t ready. It’s fair to ask where is this team’s Ray Lewis?
The problems seemed to be corrected in the second half, though. The defense was pretty much in control throughout the second half. Special mention should go out to Kris Jenkins, who had another dominating performance, to Sean Ellis, who was disruptive particularly when lined up over center, and to the linebackers, particularly David Harris and Calvin Pace who were both exceptional. Youtube will no doubt feature Harris on a key second down play, lifting the blocker off the ground and carrying him into the Cincy quarterback for a sack.
The offense was spotty. Favre was not at his best at times underthrowing Coles badly for the first INT and throwing into double coverage for the second. Coles missed a couple of passes he should have caught but he still made some tough ones. Cotchery was sparkling as usual. Both receivers collected eight passes each.
Thomas Jones had a pretty good day although the stats didn’t show it with only 65 yards on 17 attempts. Leon Washington spoke loudly with a couple of nice third down conversion yacs and great punt returning. The Bengals had no answer for him. The tight ends were a mixed blessing with Baker and Bubba Franks catching key passes but Baker also missing the block on Ndukwe to give up seven. For you rookie watchers, Dustin Keller was nowhere to be seen. The offense as a whole was just good enough to keep the defense from spending a lot of time on the field. It’ll have to play a lot better to win the tougher games later in the schedule but every week can’t be perfect. As long as the team keeps improving, we ought to be happy.
So, the game was an ugly win. We’ll all take it, no doubt. We were mediocre on offense and sharp on defense. Next week: Oakland. Let’s hope the Oakland Raiders still won’t be able to get out of their own way by then.
