The final note of the national anthem dissolved into the Meadowlands air and Herman Edwards took brief pause to look toward the sky with thoughts of his late father, Herman Sr., flooding his mind on this special day.
He then turned to his right and hugged his son, Marcus, who was in from Florida visiting for the weekend.
That would be the last warm-and-fuzzy moment Edwards would experience in his NFL head-coaching debut, a rough-seas, 45-24 loss to the Colts at Giants Stadium.
All the positive feelings from the new era, all the preparation installing the ballyhooed West Coast offense and the 4-3 Tampa Bay defense melted down before the eyes of a disbelieving, agitated capacity crowd.
The distasteful final result was mostly a product of an utterly-inexcusable lack of tackling and tight pass coverage by the defense and spotty, stop-and-start play by the offense.
Curtis bluntly described the day like this: “We killed ourselves. We put the gun to our heads and committed suicide.”
Martin, though, insisted the loss had nothing to do with a lack of preparation.
“We did this to ourselves,” Martin said. “It was like joining the army, going through basic training to get ready to go to war and then going to war and your gun jams up. We all have a sense of embarrassment.”
Nothing on this emotional roller-coaster of an afternoon proved to be more hideously embarrassing than the Colts’ final, game-icing TD – a rumbling, bumbling, stumbling 95-yard fumble return by a third-year 280-pound Colts’ DE named Chukie Nwokorie.
With the Jets on the verge of cutting what was once a 21-point Colts’ lead to 38-31, the wacky play gave the Colts their 45-24 lead and left the Jets standing around with hands on hips in disbelief.
Here’s what went down:
On fourth-and-one from the Colts’ two, the Jets tried to run a play called “fake 12 blast wing quick drag,” which is designed for Martin and David Loverne, a guard playing fullback, to dive to the right side and for Vinny Testaverde to throw a pass in the flat to either FB Richie Anderson or TE Anthony Becht.
Loverne, perhaps mistaking the play for something called “jab 12 base,” went the wrong way when the ball was snapped and his right shoulder pad bumped Testaverde and knocked the ball loose – right into the arms of Nwokorie.
Testaverde, who later explained that he was trying to strip Nwokorie of the ball instead of tackling him, was the only player with a chance to stop Nwokorie, who was rambling slowly down the right sideline. Testaverde was swatted out of the way like an annoying fly.
Before Nwokorie caught the fumble, Giants Stadium was alive with energy as the Jets engineered their comeback. By the time he made it to the end zone in what looked like slow emotion, the stadium was quiet and nearly empty.
The play was eerily Kotitian, the kind of slapstick misfortune that became the norm during the Rich Kotite era. By the way, the loss was the worst for the Jets in a home opener since Kotite’s 31-6 loss to Denver in 1996 and his 52-14 loss to Miami in 1995.
Afterward, Edwards called the botched play a “miscommunication,” saying it might have taken too long to get it to the huddle, and Testaverde took responsibility for not making the play clear enough once it got to the huddle.
Loverne, however, would have no part in it.
“There was no miscommunication,” a despondent Loverne said afterward. “I [bleeped] it all up. I did the wrong thing. I went the wrong way and I hit Vinny’s arm. I [bleeped] the game up for the whole team.”
Jets’ CB Marcus Coleman called the sight of Nwokorie running into the end zone “sickening.”
“That play, in all my years of playing football, is the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen,” Jets’ S Nick Ferguson said.
