Same Old Jets.
There is too much to talk about and too little explanation for what transpired on Sunday vs the Buffalo Bills.
I seemingly watched a team completely forget it’s identity and how to win a close football game.
I saw the 2014 Jets.
I get that Chris Ivory has not been the same since Week 6, but you are not going to sit here and tell me that Stevan Ridley who had less than 100 total yards on the season, was a better option.
No way, not buying it.
Ivory managed to take his six carries for 80 yards (one of which was a 5-yard pickup). You would think that would have warranted a few more carries, in the biggest Jets game in half a decade.
You would think that the offense game plan would have been something of managing an offense through weather, but no, they let Fitzpatrick air it out 37 times while taking shots downfield rather than using in-routes, flat-routes and other short patterns to form an extended-running game.
Nope.
I am a big Fitzpatrick fan, but you have go to be kidding me, letting him throw 37 times? I get that the Jets were losing which usually dictates throwing the ball—the Jets were never down more than three scores, and in the first half, you do not have to start throwing the ball like you are down big when you are only down a score or two.
He has average-at-best arm strength, and that spells trouble in heavy wind and cold tundra.
Head Coach Todd Bowles gave the following explanation as to why Ivory was so seldom-used: “The game did not dictate using him.”
Well ok then.
Ivory had not produced at the same level he did in the first six weeks of the season, but Stevan Ridley had yet to look like an NFL running back this season.
If Ivory was injured, say he was injured. If you truly decided that your 1000-yard rusher was not best suited to help win a game, then I have no answers either.
Imagine the Jets losing this game 15 years ago, and Bill Parcells saying, “we felt that the game did not dictate using our 1000-yard rusher, Curtis Martin” following the loss.
They said they wanted Ivory to take over Bilal Powell’s third-down RB role, as a situational-runner.
Makes no sense, right? No solid explanation? I have one.
Same. Old. Jets.
