Take flight with the Jets

Text with Brian Costello all season as he brings Sports+ subscribers the latest Jets intel from on the field and off.

In the span of 138 seconds, the Jets went from the doorstep of a tying touchdown to a 20-point deficit and getting booed off the field. 

That’s the kind of damage that can be done by two penalties, a fumble and a three-and-out on offense, and allowing five gains of at least 10 yards to fuel two quick-strike touchdown drives. 

In the blink of an eye, Aaron Glenn went from calling a timeout just after the two-minute warning in hopes of getting a clean slate at halftime to becoming the first head coach in tortured Jets history to drop his first five games, courtesy of a noncompetitive 37-22 blowout loss Sunday to the Cowboys. 

“It keeps me up at night trying to process,” Sauce Gardner said. “It’s hard for me to sleep trying to see, ‘Why are we not winning? Dang, why every time something is going good for us, something bad has to bring us one step forward and two steps back?’” 

John Simpson’s nightmares don’t come just at bedtime. The veteran left guard wiped tears from his eyes in the postgame locker room as he pondered the Jets’ first 0-5 start since 2020. 

“I get emotional about this s–t,” Simpson said. “But I know we’re going to turn this s–t around.” 

With 11 minutes remaining and the scoreboard reading 30-6, MetLife Stadium sounded like Jerry’s World East as a “Let’s Go Cowboys!” chant rained down. Hours later, the Jets were left standing as the NFL’s last winless team. 

“It’s going to take time,” Glenn said, falling on an already familiar refrain. 

It was impossible to consider that the Jets would be down 23-3 at the half when Breece Hall was cutting through the red zone with a chance to cut into a 10-3 deficit with 2:18 on the clock. But Hall — who finished with 155 yards from scrimmage — lost a fumble at the 13-yard line. 

“I put it on myself,” Hall said. “I told my coach, ‘That turned into a 14-point swing real fast.’ I ain’t playing the blame game. I don’t have time to play the blame game.” 

An undeterred Glenn thought he might be able to give his listless offense a shot to make amends, so he called his first timeout to freeze the Cowboys (2-2-1) before second-and-10 from the 9-yard line. 

Then came the chunk yardage: 10, 14, 46, 11 and a 5-yard touchdown. 

The second Cowboys touchdown — after the Jets possessed the ball for a haplessly aggressive 28 seconds — was simpler: A 66-yard run by Javonte Williams and a 1-yard touchdown pass to Jake Ferguson. 

“That was unacceptable as a defense,” Gardner said. “Boom! An explosive happened. If A.G. didn’t trust us, he would’ve been like run the ball, make them use both timeouts and we go to halftime. But we went back out there and we didn’t do what we were supposed to.” 

The Jets — quickly becoming the kings of meaningless fourth-quarter fantasy stats — made the final score closer than it really was with two touchdown passes by Justin Fields, who threw for 283 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 26 yards. 

Garrett Wilson (six catches for 71 yards) made a spectacular individual effort to avoid a tackle and stretch the ball over the goal line. But you never would have guessed by the Jets’ first-half production that the Cowboys entered the game allowing an NFL-worst 420.5 yards per game, including 297.3 through the air. Even since-benched Giants quarterback Russell Wilson threw for a near-career-high 450 yards against this sieve of a secondary in Week 2. 

Garrett Wilson went more than 35 minutes between his first and second catches. 

Fields had 74 yards passing yards at the half, and most were during a game-opening 13-play, 66-yard drive for a field goal that turned out to be indicative of nothing after Hall’s fumble. 

“The only reason it was as deflating as it was is because the exact same thing happened last week,” Fields said, referencing Braelon Allen’s goal-line fumble. “It was like a ‘damn’ moment.” 

When it was still a 3-3 game, Glenn chose to punt on fourth-and-5 from the Cowboys 43-yard line after seeing Fields overthrow an open Wilson on second down. The decision backfired because the Cowboys drove 90 yards on 13 plays for a touchdown. 

Ferguson caught a tight end screen and his blocking convoy allowed him to scoot untouched 26 yards to the end zone for the go-ahead score. 

Dak Prescott threw four touchdown passes to continue his MVP-like pace, and the Cowboys ran for 180 yards. 

“Not good enough,” Gardner said. “Not good enough at all.” 

Two weeks after the Jets erased a 17-point fourth-quarter deficit to take a short-lived lead against the Buccaneers, there was no late comeback to be had. 

Not once Fields came up short on two fourth-and-1s — an incomplete pass to Andrew Beck and a stuffed quarterback sneak — and Gardner allowed a 43-yard touchdown pass to George Pickens in one-on-one coverage. 

Fields and Beck later connected on a 1-yard touchdown pass. 

“No one expected this,” Wilson said. “This is my first time going through a full staff change. I couldn’t say I knew what I was getting into as far as the growing pains that come with that.”