The Jets needed two yards in their effort to upset Tom Brady and the Buccaneers in the most unexpected fashion Sunday. A short first-down run on 4th-and-2, while leading 24-20, would have all but put the game away before the final two-minute warning.
Instead of turning to Ty Johnson and Austin Walter, who single-handedly carried the Jets deep into Tampa Bay territory, Mike LaFleur went in a different direction. New York’s rookie offensive coordinator dialed up what amounted to a quarterback sneak. Zach Wilson went nowhere, giving the ball back to Brady with far too much time on the clock.
The end result? Brady drove down the field and fired a laser for a touchdown with 15 seconds remaining. The Buccaneers won, 28-24.
As it turns out, LaFleur didn’t call a straight quarterback sneak, according to Robert Saleh. Wilson was supposed to have the option to hand off to Braxton Berrios on a reverse, similar to the fourth-down play the Jets ran for Elijah Moore in a Week 12 win over the Texans.
That was not properly communicated, though, and Wilson kept it himself against a stacked box.
“It was a reverse to Berrios,” Saleh said postgame. “The quarterback has an option based on the look that he has to sneak the ball. In that situation, we wanted the ball handed off to Berrios, but we did a very poor job as a coaching staff communicating that in the huddle.”
Had Wilson handed the ball off to Berrios as the Jets wanted him to, Berrios likely would have had the first down with a lot of open field to run in front of him.
“Zach executed the play as it’s designed,” Saleh said. “Unfortunately, if you look… Braxton probably has a first down and the game’s over. Poor job on our part for the lack of communication.”
The Jets ran the ball well against a stout Buccaneers defensive front, totaling 150 yards despite not having Tevin Coleman and Michael Carter, who was lost in the first quarter with a concussion. Johnson and Walter put the Jets in position to convert on 4th-and-2, making it reasonable to question why LaFleur didn’t just turn to a traditional running play instead of a reverse with an option that wound up leading to confusion.
Either way, Saleh and his coaching staff are shouldering the blame for the botched play. New York had a chance to pull off its first signature win since defeating the Titans in Week 4 and fell short because of an avoidable mistake. The Jets showcased a ton of progress against the Buccaneers, but evading those gaffes moving forward will be the difference in a successful rebuild or more of the same old story.
“We got the play call and I liked it, just because it has two different options,” Wilson said. “Right there, I was thinking to do my job and we had an open ‘A’ gap right there and unfortunately came up short.”
