Jets fall, 27–17, to Bills in sloppy season opener
First things first, fire Adam Gase.
In what is likely to be a trend this year, I’m going to start these recaps by stating the obvious: The Jets need to fire their head coach. The Jets showing up for the first game of the 2020 season looking as sloppy, undisciplined, and flat out bad as they did, is not entirely on the coaching, but a good amount of it is.
The offense, outside of two or three drives, looked completely lifeless and unprepared. Sam Darnold had a bad game — missing passes and committing mistakes that are common for rookies, not third-year quarterbacks. The run game looked sloppy, and the wide receivers were dropping passes left and right.
The defense didn’t fare much better, with the Bills completely dominating them in the first half. Thankfully, Gregg Williams must have made some adjustments at half time because the defense played better, albeit not by much. Outside of Marcus Maye and Bless Austin (at times), the Jets defense looked incredible sluggish and couldn’t keep Josh Allen under wraps.
Is Sam Darnold the guy?
You won’t find a bigger defender of Sam Darnold than this writer. Search far and wide on Al Gore’s internet, and you’ll find my takes standing by Darnold through thick and thin.
Today was rough. It was not a good day for him, finishing with a stat line of 21/35, 215 yards, 6.1 YPA, 1 TD, 1 INT. When you account for his 69 (nice) yard touchdown pass to Jamison Crowder and another 60 yards coming in garbage time when the game was over, those stats look even worse. He missed passes, made questionable throws, and on one particularly head-scratching play, Darnold took a sack when he had all the time in the world to throw the ball away. It was a game full of mistakes that you would hope would have been corrected by this point in his career, but they are still plaguing him at the start of year three.
I’m not prepared to say he isn’t, but the question must start being discussed: Is Sam Darnold the Jets’ future quarterback? It’s the first game of his third season (and the start of a very weird season at that), but the mistakes he continues to make are the ones that he committed in his rookie season and last year as well. For all the good Adam Gase and Dowell Loggains were supposed to do for his development, Darnold’s decision making hasn’t improved. We knew it last season, but Gase and Loggains are doing more harm than good for Darnold and, in many ways, are making him a worse quarterback.
Jets play calling was…bad
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Adam Gase is a terrible play-caller.
It’s almost as if Gase has learned nothing from his years as a head coach. He STILL calls far too many screen passes, runs the ball up the middle on 2nd and long, and doesn’t fully utilize his dual-threat players (cough, cough Le’Veon Bell.)
It wasn’t just Gase that had a rough day at the office when it comes to coaches. Gregg Williams, who was one of the few bright spots on the team last season, coached a rather dull defense today, and that unit looked extremely sluggish. The defense committed far too many penalties, including numerous mistakes that allowed the Bills to continue drives; the most egregious of these errors coming on a red-zone pass interference that gave the Bills a touchdown on the next series of downs.
Josh Allen made quick work of the defense through the air and on the ground. He avoided tackles, was (mostly) accurate, and generally looked sharp. As much as it pains me to say it, Allen is looking more and more like a professional quarterback; meanwhile, Darnold still seems lost.
Did anything good happen?
I’m glad you asked! Because yes!
Marcus Maye balled out Sunday. He had 10 tackles, two sacks, two TFLs, hit the quarterback twice, and forced a fumble. He has been pushed into the Jamal Adams type role, and if today is any indication, he seems up the task. Adams is a once in a generation type of player, so trying to fill that role is going to be impossible, but Maye will be as good as the Jets can hope for.
In another glaring indictment on Darnold’s performance today, the offensive line actually looked decent. The pressure was still getting to Darnold, but a lot of that can be chalked up to the Bills’ defense, which is an excellent unit. The offensive line needs some more time to gel and get used to working with one another — it’s an entirely new unit comprised of players that haven’t played together before. However, there is potential there.
It might just be week one but today is a pretty tough loss. When they play as poorly as they did, the Jets simply need to go back to the drawing board because they have an even more formidable opponent next week in the San Francisco 49ers.
The Jets have plenty of problems right now, Adam Gase being chief among them, but it’d be remiss of me not to mention that one of those problems is also Sam Darnold.
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