A day after the Jets’ season-opening loss, coach Robert Saleh said his faith is not shaken that this team will turn things around and become a winner and he’s keeping track of all the non-believers.
“I know it’s going to happen,” Saleh said in a Zoom call with reporters Monday. “We’re all taking receipts on all the people who continually mock and say that we aren’t going to do anything. I’m taking receipts, and I’m going to be more than happy to share them with all of you when it’s all said and done.”
Saleh then doubled down during an interview on “The Michael Kay Show” on ESPN Radio and said he can’t wait “to shove it down everyone’s throat when it comes around.”
The feistiness from the second-year coach was good to see after his team’s 24-9 loss to the Ravens, but Saleh has to understand where the frustration from Jets fans comes from. He has been here for 18 games. They have lived through the last 11 years of not making the playoffs and the last 53 of not playing in a Super Bowl.
Sunday’s loss to the Ravens looked all too familiar. The Jets did some good things but made too many mistakes to even be competitive in the second half of the game. Dropped passes, fumbles, an interception, missed kicks, a bad punt and a few defensive breakdowns doomed the Jets. Then, after the game they have to hear from players who have only been here a short time say that this team is different than the past teams.
Is it too much to ask for the team to stop talking about how different it is and prove it on the field?
Since the Jets lost the AFC Championship game to the Steelers in January 2011, they have gone 63-115. Since 2017, the Jets are 22-60, the worst record in the NFL (the Giants broke the tie with their win Sunday).
It is not totally fair that Saleh and the current Jets have to carry the burden of the organization’s past failures. But that is the way it is. When Jets fans see what they saw Sunday, they can’t help but think of all the crappy football they have been forced to endure in recent years. Sunday’s loss was the Jets’ 13th straight September loss, an NFL record for losing in the season’s opening month. When you open the season 0-3 every year, it’s tough to maintain hope.
Saleh acknowledged how tough the losing is for everyone.
Jets head coach Robert Saleh reacts during the team’s loss to the Ravens on Sunday. Getty Images“It’s exhausting for coaches, it’s exhausting for ownership, it’s exhausting for you guys to continue writing about losers, it’s exhausting for fans, it’s exhausting for everybody,” Saleh said. “And nobody wants to lose. It’s on us as coaches to see how quickly we can accelerate this, and it’s on us as an organization to see how we can facilitate all this knowledge to get these guys where they need to be so they can do right longer and play the way they need to.”
Saleh pointed to the positives from Sunday’s game. The Jets did pile up 378 total yards and held the Ravens to just 274 yards and 63 rushing yards. The Jets now go to Cleveland to face a Browns team that is playing with backup quarterback Jacoby Brissett while Deshaun Watson is suspended after being accused by more than two dozen women of sexual misconduct. The Jets now will focus on cutting down on the mistakes that killed them against Baltimore.
“Yesterday, in my opinion, we did not get beat, we lost,” Saleh said. “And they’re two totally different things. You just look at it, it just felt like we were the faster team. We played with a lot of speed and aggression, especially on defense. And a lot of these little mistakes, and a lot of things that people don’t see with regards to busts, misalignments, whatever it might be, you just see these little things happening and we have to learn how to do right longer.”
