On Sunday the Lands resembled more of a masoleum than a football stadium. Utters of "same ol' Jets" and "40 years-- nothing's changed" resonated through the parking lot upon conclusion of the game.

If getting swept by Miami (a team we have owned this decade), and losing to Buffalo at home (who just hired a guy that has zero HC’ing experience) wasn't bad enough, yet another disheartening loss was suffered. This one was on Rex—Giving the guys 6 days off obviously contributed to them coming out flat.

While the loss was a crushing one to the GangGreen Nation, and the negatives have continued to haunt us throughout the week, the J-E-T-S did improve upon a couple things:

The Good: 

Thomas Jones- Continues to show us he can still be a workhorse in this league. After Leon was injured in the OAK game and they were no longer splitting carries, a lot of questions arose surrounding the 31-year old’s age—regarding whether or not he could still carry the ball 20+ times a game. In the L3 weeks, he's rushed 74 times/300 yards. I’d say he’s silenced the doubters. Granted he was going up against a weak Jax front-7, and didn’t break any big ones, but he was hitting holes well and thought he played his role nicely.

-Third Down Conversions- Did a much better job of setting up "third-and-manageable", and it showed. They were 7 of 13 on 3rd downs… a big improvement on previous weeks: 3-14 vs MIA, 3-15 vs Buff, 4-11 @ MIA. A step in the right direction, no doubt.

The Bad:

 Lack of Pressure off the Outside/Inability to Create turnovers-This IMO has been a recurring theme this year. They’ve been good against the run,(although the LB core uncharacteristically missed a lot of tackles on Sunday).. but terrible regarding pass-rush. This is a 3-4 defense that is predicated on getting pressure on the QB and making the secondary’s job easier., The lack of pressure from the outside by Pace (who has yet to show up this year..) and Thomas is certainly not helping our turnovers. Seven INT’s and Five recovered fumbles just isn’t characteristic of a 3-4 Rex Ryan Defense. Not cutting it guys.
 Regarding the secondary, they’re getting a lot of tipped balls but just can’t finish the job and come down with it! Frustrating, but hopefully they’ll start picking more off.

Slow start/Unprepared defense- This is just completely unacceptable when you are coming off the bye week/have an extra week to prepare. You can’t go wrong with setting the tone by stacking the box early and forcing Garrard to throw. Would have much rather see him beat us w/ his arm rather than watching the Jones-Drew-show on their first possession (5 carries/55 yards/TD). Jax did not throw the ball once on that drive, and they punched us right in the mouth. We all know this Jags’ team’s WR core is awful-- we should have not only been ready for the run but also bottled it up. Again, understand some of this was because of their 6-day-vacation, but that’s no excuse.

The Random:

-Losing Leon was as catastrophic as we thought it was. The stretch plays were totally ineffective (albeit against a Jags defense that has pretty good speed on the outside), and the only pitch that worked was an excellent call on 4th & 1 when Greene set up the go-ahead TD late in 4Q.
We’re really going to miss him this week vs NE, great weapon for countering the blitz with some misdirections/screens.

-Sanchez- hard for me to rip on the kid, as he seems to continue to grow and improve upon his mistakes, BUT..Throwing balls at guy’s feet, lack of vision/weak pre-snap reads, and that INT on the screen pass were rough. All rookie mistakes, so we look past it and move on.
 GRANTED, there is a positive spin on this: he looks to be trying to improve upon his early downfall of staring down receivers, which may be why his vision is suffering. He’ll get there… I still believe he’s the chosen one.
 Also, the chemistry between him and Keller is improving (although he dropped a couple), but the two seem to be getting on the same page, which is a big improvement from the Buffalo game. Hopefully he’ll improve on his accuracy, because his ball security seems to be improving a bit (although this week will be the test).

 -Two wasted timeouts due to 12 men on the field. That just can’t happen. One of them was on 2nd & 6.. 

 -Secondary giving up 8.0 YPP to GARRARD makes me want to puke–Again,  this is due to lack of pass rush. 

Moving on to NE this week, GangGreen, and we need a miracle to save our season.....