Monday Morning Quarterback: Denver Broncos vs. New York Jets

Oct 12, 2014; East Rutherford, NJ, USA; Denver Broncos quarterback

Peyton Manning

(18) shakes hands with New York Jets quarterback

Geno Smith

(7) after their game at MetLife Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

30. . 31. 45. 17

Ho hum, Jets fans. Another week is in the books, and so is another loss. The Jets did play better than I imagine most of us expected them to, but there are no moral victories in the NFL. So, you are what your record says you are, and the Jets are 1-5, after falling to the Denver Broncos 31-17. Let’s talk about another unhappy recap:

The Jets, to their credit, stayed in this one. We have to give them credit for the ability to make a game of it, even when the score enlarged to 24-7. The Jets did score 10 unanswered points, capped by a nine play, 63 yard drive that ended with a touchdown pass to Eric Decker.

The trouble is, the Jets offense cannot put a drive together when the game is on the line. They could from time to time in 2013, but they cannot so far in 2014. Case and point during the game yesterday. The Jets narrowed the score to 24-17 off of the Decker touchdown, and held the Broncos to a three and out. The Jets took over with average field position, their own 33, with 6:09 remaining in the game. This is where the Jets had the chance to make a statement. They had the chance to say, “See? We can play with these guys!”

But instead, they didn’t. They went three and out, and didn’t see the ball again until there was less than a minute remaining in the game. At that point, Geno Smith forced the ball down the field to make something happen, and was intercepted for a game ending pick six. It’s hard to fault Geno Smith for the interception, when it gets that late in the game, the quarterback is going to try and force action. The issue was the drive BEFORE that, when the Jets had the momentum, but couldn’t hold it.

Good teams know now to take the momentum, and HOLD ON to that momentum. Teams that are not ready to win allow the momentum to return to the other team. this is one of the biggest problems with this Jets team, not having that instinct to take a shot of momentum, and use it to take control of the game.

Before the Jets have any chance to make a serious run of winning games, they need to figure out how to get this done.

Oct 12, 2014; East Rutherford, NJ, USA; Denver Broncos defensive end

DeMarcus Ware

(94) sacks New York Jets quarterback Geno Smith (7) during the second half at MetLife Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports

Let’s not put it all on the Jets here. That takes away from the play of a good team, and the Broncos are, make no mistake, a terrific football team. The defense had an excellent game plan to take away the Jets running attack. The Jets could not get it going on the ground at all. They needed to be able to consistently run the football to have a chance to win, and they couldn’t run it at all.

Give credit to Geno Smith for keeping the Jets in it. Despite everything, he did play better yesterday than he had in the past couple of weeks. He just couldn’t get a drive going when the Jets needed it most, at 24-17 with 6:09 to go.