Jeff Ulbrich knew his audience.
The New York Jets interim head coach knew that darkness is more than just a metaphor for the quarterback on whose shoulders the franchise rests.
So, in the wake of Fifth consecutive loss for the JetsUlbrich looked at imagery.
His message to a team that missed an eminently winnable divisional game against the New England Patriots?
“It’s a moment of darkness,” Ulbrich said in his locker room after the rebuilding Patriots beat them 25-22. “And we understand that the outside world is going to get very noisy right now. But the one thing I know in life is that when it gets dark and it gets tough, you work. And you point the finger at yourself, you look inside and you find out what I can do better.
Rodgers is intimately familiar with darkness in a way perhaps no one else in the league is.
The four-time MVP spent four nights in complete obscurity in 2023 as he contemplated retirement. Instead of hanging it up, Rodgers instead emerged from his meditative retirement to help facilitate his trade from the Green Bay Packers to the Jets.
Rodgers’ latest exit from literal obscurity gave the Jets a powerful injection of hope. But after the Jets fell to last place in the AFC East on Sunday, can he find that strength again?
But as New York’s offense struggles to line up without penalties or delays of the game, and the Jets’ defense struggles to stop the run while special teams miss kicks every week, Rodgers can he find the strength to light up the Jets again?
With the shadow of his hat fittingly hiding his eyes in the darkness during his post-match press conference, Rodgers believed him.
“I’ve been in the dark,” he says. “You have to go. Make peace with that.
Jets’ loss to struggling Patriots caused problems beyond a week
What would peace in darkness look like for Rodgers?
The quarterback took advantage of Ulbrich’s imperative to point the finger at himself more than the others.
“Offensively, our goal has to be: Go ahead, score 30,” Rodgers said after a 17-for-28, 233-yard day, including two touchdowns. “It doesn’t matter what the other parties do. We have confidence in our defense and our (special) teams, but if we don’t score 30, we’re not performing well.
“This offense can do that every week.”
Rodgers’ words echoed team owner Woody Johnson’s assertion when he fired head coach Robert Saleh on October 8, insisting that this was the best Jets team he had assembled and therefore should be better than 2-3.
Since then, the Jets have further strengthened both sides of the ball, trade for receiver Davante Adams and reaching a contractual agreement with the recalcitrant Hassan Reddick.
No matter: They have now lost five games in a row, including three after Saleh’s firing, two to Adams and one to Reddick.
And the Jets haven’t reached Rodgers’ 30-point threshold once in eight tries.
Their 22 points Sunday were their most since scoring 24 against the Patriots five weeks earlier, a mark that still falls short of the 25 points allowed per game to the Patriots.
And while a missed 44-yard field goal and a missed extra point attempt hurt the Jets in this loss, so did the ongoing operational mess. The Jets used their first-half timeouts before the start of the second quarter, also committing five of their eight penalties in the first half.
“One of them, we were slow to get out of the group, one of them, I was trying to get the right protection, and the other one, I felt like we could have gotten away with it. get out, but it was good to take (a timeout) there,” Rodgers said. . “Our operation was a little slow at times. »
Operational lethargy bit the Jets again in the fourth quarter, when they fell behind again on a two-point conversion attempt after scoring the go-ahead touchdown with 2:57 remaining. The five-yard penalty more than tripled the two yards needed on the play. The missed play meant the Patriots needed a touchdown, but not an extra point attempt, to win.
The Patriots ended up getting both, as the Jets defense followed their offense’s lead in hesitating.
Rodgers defended the decision while accepting its consequences.
“They start the clock at 8 p.m. and we had a change and a motion,” he said. “By the time we got to that, the defense they were playing wasn’t good for the game that was decided. So I thought let’s just bring it back to 7, it’s not that much of a difference. I like the play we called, but they didn’t bring any pressure.
“And I guessed wrong, they guessed right.”
Jets have a quick turnaround before the Texans arrive
The Jets will have the opportunity to cleanse their palate on Thursday.
But they’ll have to do it against a 6-2 Houston Texans team whose quarterback is 18 years greener than the NFL but currently more productive.
The Texans’ offense has been shakier than last season, when CJ Stroud won Offensive Rookie of the Year. But their defense ranked second in yards allowed this week and 11th in points allowed.
Against the same Patriots team that just beat the Jets, the Texans won 41-21 two weeks ago. That Patriots team had starting quarterback Drake Maye for four quarters; the Jets played him for just 16 minutes before he was evaluated and then ruled out with a concussion.
Ulbrich, who described himself and the team as “pissed off” and “hurt,” stressed the importance of cleaning up play operations and executing them more consistently.
“We don’t execute the measures in critical moments, especially in the home stretch,” Ulbrich said. “We say this is not who we are. But that’s what we are until we prove otherwise.
Ulbrich expressed confidence in the Jets’ ability to turn a corner and the team’s ability to emerge from obscurity like they and Rodgers had done before.
The team will rely on positives like Rodgers and Garrett Wilson’s best game of the season with defenders focused on Adams. The Jets defense allowed fewer yards than in six weeks, but they also allowed a shorthanded group to convert on 7 of 15 third-down attempts and three of four trips to the red zone.
Ulbrich said he would “take a hard look at everything,” including the best plan at kicker after Greg Zuerlein’s sixth missed field goal of the season.
Hard work and responsibility are the Jets’ way out of obscurity, Ulbrich said.
“If we do this collectively, which I believe we will do, this is your only opportunity to get out of this,” Ulbrich said. “This is your only opportunity to improve and right some of these wrongs.” This is where we are lucky.
“The character of this locker room (will) demonstrate who we are.”
