PLAY to win the game.
This must be the Jets’ mantra Sunday when they open their home schedule against the favored Dolphins at Giants Stadium.
It must be the Jets’ mantra Sunday and thereafter until they’re no longer playing this year, because there are only 16 of these regular-season games and anything short of an all-out, go-for-broke game plan in each is cheating the team and its fans.
This message comes on the heels of the Jets’ season-opening 16-13 loss to the eminently beatable Redskins last Thursday, a game in which the Jets played not to lose offensively.
You know the Jets played not to lose on offense. They know they played not to lose on offense. The free world knows they played not to lose on offense.
This, the point must be made, is not to say there was a lack of effort on the part of the Jets, because that’s not the case. Apart from their opening drive, which included an aggressive fourth-and-goal call to run for the touchdown, there seemed to be a lack of any go-for-it spark to the Jets’ offense.
That has to change.
The shackles must be removed from Vinny Testaverde, who must throw the ball down the field to stretch the Miami defense despite the fact the Dolphins’ corners are among the best in the game. The Jets have to strike fear in their defensive opponent.
To do that, Herman Edwards and offensive coordinator Paul Hackett must trust their stuff, trust their personnel.
That means trusting Testaverde.
There’ve been a series of spin cycles taking place since the Redskins game, the latest of which was Edwards saying the game plan wasn’t conservative, that the plays called weren’t executed and that made the plan appear conservative.
Those words, however, came just days after Hackett hinted they’d called a conservative plan because they didn’t want to “throw” Testaverde “to the wolves” after having so few snaps in the preseason and having not played in a regular-season game since last September.
Hackett cannot be deathly afraid of the interception and the sack. Testaverde didn’t throw an INT, was sacked only once and was protected well, yet he threw for only 105 yards Thursday night.
Hackett isn’t the only one to blame here, of course. Testaverde was short on a handful of critical third-down passes to his receivers, and the receivers’ routes on those plays didn’t help the quarterback. The offensive line didn’t run block well, and Curtis Martin didn’t explode through the holes as well as he should have.
But the bottom line to this season is this: With Chad Pennington out until at least November, the Jets’ season is in Testaverde’s hands, hands that must be freed to help the Jets win the game.
“We have a lot of room for improvement . . . I certainly do,” Testaverde said.
“We’ve got to get some chunks of yardage in one play every once in awhile,” Edwards said. “We’ve got some guys to do that.”
Now the Jets must use them. They talked up Santana Moss’ improvement all summer and hardly used him in the first half. Send Moss out there on the first play and throw it deep to him. Put that in the minds of the Miami defense.
Something else the Jets must figure out is how to get through a game running at least as many plays as their opponent. This has been a common problem for the Edwards-Hackett Jets since their arrival. The Jets have run fewer offensive plays than any team in the NFL in the last two seasons and that’s a good part of their offensive problem, too.
The Jets ran 47 offensive plays against Washington; the Redskins ran 61. The Jets had 11 first downs (a quarter’s work for some teams) to the Redskins’ 17, and they held the ball for 25:14 to Washington’s 34:46.
“For two years in a row we’ve talked about trying to get more plays,” Testaverde said. “I definitely know if you convert more first downs you get more opportunities.
“It seems like there’s more of a sense of urgency now that everyone’s taking upon themselves to get better for the benefit of the team and maybe that’s what we need. We’re working to get to where we need to be. We’re a lot closer than I believe it appeared to be on Thursday night.”
