Don’t be fooled by the final score: Sunday’s 27-17 loss was a bad one for the Jets.
Between Sam Darnold’s uninspiring performance, Adam Gase’s poor play-calling and a lack of defensive stops, the Jets somehow looked worse than they did in 2019. That, plus a couple of key injuries, don’t bode well for the Jets’ potential for the rest of the season, especially considering their upcoming schedule against the 49ers and Colts the next two weeks.
Before moving forward, however, here are four takeaways from the Jets’ Week 1 loss to the Bills.
Offense sputtered
There was hope the Jets would open Week 1 with a better offense than they had in 2019. That was dashed almost immediately when the Jets went three-and-out on their first three possessions and didn’t score a touchdown until late in the third quarter. Darnold played terribly, the running game couldn’t get going and the Jets somehow looked worse than their bottom-tier offense from a year before.
This is what happens when a team doesn’t make significant upgrades on offense. The players the Jets brought in to help Darnold didn’t: Breshad Perriman tallied just 17 yards on three receptions, Chris Hogan didn’t catch a ball and Frank Gore rushed for a team-leading 24 yards.
The Jets totaled just 254 yards and their two touchdowns came on a long, broken defensive play and a garbage-time score late in the game with a loss all but sealed. It’s only one game, but early indications aren’t promising for Gase’s second season in New York.
Inefficient Darnold
Darnold didn’t look good in his Year 3 debut. He completed only 21-35 passing attempts for 215 yards, averaged only six yards per pass and finished with one touchdown and one pick – and that’s with Jamison Crowder’s 69-yard receiving touchdown. If you take that one catch away, Darnold’s stats are downright horrid.
His decision-making was suspect as well. Darnold missed open receivers, took sacks instead of throwing the ball away and his interception was a pitiful underthrow while on the run outside the pocket. Yes, his supporting cast is bad and yes, Gase isn’t a good play-caller, but at some point, the blame needs to shift to Darnold.
Defense couldn’t stop a nosebleed
The Jets defense allowed 27 points, 404 total yards and 31 first downs. Josh Allen completed 71.7 percent of his passes for 312 yards with two passing touchdowns and added only 57 yards and a touchdown on the ground. Chalk it up to injuries, lost players or a bad/inexperienced secondary, but Gregg Williams’ squad didn’t get the job done.
Stefon Diggs and John Brown carved up the Jets and Williams benched starting cornerback Pierre Desir in the second quarter. The defensive line managed three sacks for six yards but allowed almost 100 rushing yards. Nothing worked, save for two fumble recoveries, and the Jets couldn’t hold back anything the Bills threw at them.
Injury concerns
The Jets were already reeling from a bevy of injuries and absences on both sides of the ball and they were compounded by the losses of Le’Veon Bell and Blake Cashman in Week 1.
Cashman left early in the game with a groin injury and Bell missed most of the fourth quarter with a hamstring injury. Both injuries leave the Jets woefully thin at inside linebacker and running back – positions the Jets already didn’t have much depth.
