Jeff Ulbrich knew his audience well.
The New York Jets’ interim head coach knew Darkness wasn’t just a metaphor for a quarterback carrying a franchise on his back.
So, right after the Jets’ fifth straight loss, Ulbrich took shelter in his image.
What was his message to the team following their blowout win in the divisional game against the New England Patriots?
“This is a moment of darkness,” Ulbrich said in the locker room after the rebuilding Patriots won 25-22. “And we understand that the outside world can get very noisy right now. But the only thing I know in life is that when it gets dark and hard, people work. . And you point the finger at yourself and look within yourself and think about what you can do better.”
Rodgers is probably more familiar with the dark side than anyone else in the league.
The four-time MVP famously spent four nights in total darkness contemplating retirement in 2023. Instead of calling it off, Rodgers emerged from his meditative hiding place to facilitate a trade from the Green Bay Packers to the Jets.
Rodgers’ final emergence from literal darkness gave the Jets a powerful dose of hope. But can he find that strength again after the Jets fell to last place in the AFC East on Sunday?
But with New York’s offense struggling to line up without penalties or delay of game, special teams missing kicks week after week, and the Jets defense struggling to stop giving up runs, Rodgers once again sparked the Jets. Will you be able to find the strength to put it on?
Rodgers believed so, as the shadow of his hat hid the darkness perfectly over his eyes during the postgame press conference.
“I was in the dark,” he said. “You have to get into it. Make peace with it.”
Jets lose to struggling Patriots, hardship continues for more than a week
What does peace in the darkness look like for Rogers?
The quarterback took advantage of Ulbrich’s command to blame himself more than others.
“Offensively, our goal has to be this: Just go for 30 points,” Rodgers said of a day in which he completed 17 of 28 for 233 yards, including two touchdowns. He finished and spoke. “It doesn’t matter what the opponent does. We believe in our defense and our (special) teams, but if we’re not scoring 30 points, we’re underperforming.
“This criminal could do it every week.”
Rodgers’ words echo team owner Woody Johnson’s assertion when he fired head coach Robert Saleh on Oct. 8 that this was the best Jets roster he had assembled and therefore a 2-3. He insisted that it was better than losing.
Since then, the Jets have further strengthened both sides of the ball by trading for receiver Davante Adams and reaching a contract agreement with holdout edge rusher Hassan Reddick.
It doesn’t matter — they have now lost five straight games, including three games after Saleh’s firing, two games with Adams and one game with Reddick.
And the Jets have never reached Rodgers’ 30-point mark in eight attempts.
Sunday’s 22 points were his most since scoring 24 points against the Patriots five weeks ago, and are still below the Patriots’ 25 points per game allowed.
The loss hurt the Jets, as they missed a 44-yard field goal and missed an extra point, but the Jets were also plagued by operational confusion. The Jets used up their first half timeouts before the second quarter began, and committed five of their eight penalties in the first half.
“One of them was slow getting out of the huddle. One of them was trying to get the protection right. The other one I felt like they could have gotten off, but it doesn’t matter if I take a (timeout) there. There wasn’t,” Rogers said. . “Our operations could be a little slow at times.”
Operational lethargy struck the Jets again in the fourth quarter, as they scored a go-ahead touchdown with 2:57 left before a two-point conversion attempt delayed the game even further. The five-yard penalty was more than three times the two yards needed to complete the play. The failure of this play meant that the Patriots needed a touchdown to win, but not an extra point attempt.
The Patriots ended up getting both as the Jets defense chased and traced the offensive lead.
Mr. Rogers defended the decision while accepting the outcome.
“They started the clock at 8:00 and we had shifts and motions,” Rodgers said. “At the end of the day, the defense they were playing wasn’t the right one for the play that was called. So we thought, it’s not that much of a difference, let’s go back to seven. I like the way they played, but they didn’t put any pressure on them at all.
“And my guess was wrong, but their guess was right.”
Jets bounce back quickly before Texans arrive
The Jets will get a chance to clean up their game as early as Thursday. But they have to face the 6-2 Houston Texans, whose quarterback has been greener for the NFL for 18 years and is more productive now.
The Texans’ offense has been more inconsistent than last season, when C.J. Stroud won Offensive Rookie of the Year honors. However, Houston’s defense ranks second in yards allowed and 11th in points allowed this week.
The Texans won 41-21 against the Patriots, who had just defeated the Jets two weeks earlier. That Patriots team had four-quarter starting quarterback Drake Maye. The Jets played him just 16 minutes before he was evaluated and then ruled out with a concussion.
Ulbrich said he and his team were “angry” and “hurt” and stressed the importance of cleaning up game management and executing more consistently.
“We just didn’t execute in the important moments, especially towards the end,” Ulbrich said. “We say that’s not who we are, but that’s who we are until we prove otherwise.”
Ulbrich expressed confidence in the Jets’ ability to turn the corner and confidence in his team’s ability to come out of the darkness like the Jets and Rodgers have done before.
The team will rely on bright spots like Rodgers and Garrett Wilson’s best games of the season, while defenses will focus on Adams. The Jets’ defense allowed fewer yards than it had in six weeks, but New York also allowed shorthanded groups to convert on 7 of 15 third-down attempts and 3 of 4 trips to the red zone. It’s gone.
Ulbrich said after Greg Zuerlein missed his sixth field goal of the season, he will “take a hard look at everything,” including the best plan for the kicker and forward.
Ulbrich said hard work and commitment are the Jets’ ticket out of the darkness.
“If we do it collectively, which I believe we will, that’s our only chance to dig ourselves out of this situation,” Ulbrich said. “That’s our only chance to improve and correct some of these mistakes, and that’s where we’re lucky.
“The character in this locker room is going to show who we are.”
