Palladino: Defense, Not Geno, Did Jets In This Time
By Ernie Palladino
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Geno Smith should get the next few days off from the firestorm that has swirled around him since his disaster last week in San Diego.
Sunday's 31-17 loss to the Broncos was not all his fault. He may have done little to prevent it, but nobody can blame this one solely on him. And that in itself offers a perfect indictment of Rex Ryan's team in this 1-5 start that is almost sure to turn into 1-6 after an abbreviated practice week and a trip up to New England Thursday night.
Though this was not Smith's fault, let's not kid ourselves. The besieged quarterback was hardly perfect. He still had his usual collection of moments that makes coaches and fans alike scratch their heads and wonder if Smith is paying attention at all. He threw his traditional pick-six, this one a fairly meaningless one from Aqib Talib in his last real possession, just one play after he scrambled out of the end zone, then back in, and then escaping a safety only because the official declared him down at the 1 AFTER his knee hit behind the goal line.
There was also a questionable decision to fight out of a sack earlier in the game, only to fumble. Luckily for him, the ball came right back up and he was able to throw it away. And there was a time or two where he might have picked up a first down with his legs but instead decided to throw.
Even with those, however, Smith showed some improvement over his first-half-and-out showing in San Diego. Not that the bar was set particularly high, but at least he scored a couple of red zone touchdowns on 2-yard throws to Jace Amaro and Eric Decker. And his first-quarter scoring throw to Amaro was, in truth, a well-thrown, nicely placed ball.
So Smith gets the week -- or shall we say three days -- off from the off-with-his-head hysteria that has followed him the past month. The defense, the true perpetrators of Ryan's latest step toward the exit, should rightfully come in for a bruising.
What started off as a pretty decent showing the first 20 minutes quickly descended into the Peyton Manning-Ronnie Hillman show. The pass rush that resulted in sacks from Muhammad Wilkerson in the first quarter and Leger Douzable in the second vanished after that. What had been a force that moved Manning off his spot and allowed Smith to take a 7-3 lead into the second quarter allowed the heat to subside, and Manning stood back there with all his typical cool and picked apart the secondary.
He had help. Hillman, starting for injured Monte Ball, gashed a sixth-ranked front-seven people are just not supposed to run on. By the time that group woke up to make a big third-and-1 stop at 7:01 of the fourth quarter, it was too late.
Instead, the defense didn't know which way to look for much of the game as Manning moved his unit with about as much effort as it took him to find Demarius Thomas for 54 yards on the first play of the game. And when the opportunities did come to turn him over, the Jets' secondary failed miserably. Two throws to the end zone might have been picked off, one especially by Phillip Adams, who picked off Philip Rivers in the end zone last week. Certainly Kyle Wilson's third-quarter kneeing of a third-and-8 throw from the Denver 22 would have proved a major step in a comeback from a 24-7 hole.
None of that happened, though. Instead, the Broncos had Hillman carrying 24 times for 100 yards, Demarius Thomas catching 10 balls for 124 yards and a touchdown, and Manning throwing for three touchdowns to leave him just two short of Brett Favre's all-time record of 508.
Smith's final numbers continued to support that he's not the answer at quarterback. After a check down-heavy start where he was at least completing his shorter throws, he finished 23 of 43 for 190 yards with two touchdowns and an interception. The 70.9 passer rating isn't going to win him any awards.
In all fairness, Amaro did drop four passes on him. And the running game was non-existent.
He's still not much of a quarterback. The questions about character, leadership, and work ethic that have followed him since his drafting last year continue to hover in his franchise's spiral to oblivion.
But Sunday wasn't all Smith's fault.
Lay this one on a defense that couldn't keep the heat on the league's most dangerous quarterback -- and paid the price.
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