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Any post-Robert Saleh bump will have to wait for the New York Jets.
The Buffalo Bills came into MetLife Stadium on Monday and left with a 23-20 victory over Aaron Rodgers and the Jets in an ugly game that featured missed kicks, a seemingly endless supply of penalty flags and key mistakes from New York down the stretch.
The end result was a third straight loss for the Jets, who fell to 2-4 overall and 0-1 since firing Saleh as their head coach.
Buffalo snapped its own two-game losing streak and improved to 4-2 on the campaign by surviving a contest that featured an unbelievable 22 accepted penalties for 204 yards. Fortunately for the visitors, there was no flag on Rodgers’ final throw of the game, which was an underthrown attempt to a slipping Mike Williams that was intercepted by Taron Johnson.
Josh Allen ran out the clock from there, and social media did not hold back on the losing side:
Connor Hughes @Connor_J_Hughes
If the #Jets can’t pull this off, you can blame undisciplined football.
That was one of the reasons the Jets moved on from Robert Saleh.
You can argue a couple calls, but New York still flagged 11 (!!) times for 110 (!!) yards. That doesn’t happen on accident. It’s a problem.
Bill Barnwell @billbarnwell
Argument that Saleh needed to be fired because the Jets were committing too many penalties was nuts, as tonight shows:
1) Jets are still going to keep committing penalties
2) 2024 Jets opponents were getting flagged a lot too, which suggests they’ve run into flag-happy refs.
All eyes were on New York and how it would look with defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich serving as the interim head coach and passing game coordinator Todd Downing calling plays instead of offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett.
And things didn’t look much different in the early going, as Allen had more touchdowns (three) than incompletions (two) in the first half while the Jets stalled following a quick start that included Garrett Wilson hauling in a touchdown on their second possession.
Yet Rodgers shifted the momentum like only he can with a Hail Mary touchdown to Allen Lazard on the final play of the half. Just like that, the deficit went from double digits to three as the future Hall of Famer completed the fourth Hail Mary of his incredible career.
All that momentum helped the Jets largely control the third quarter, but they only came away with three points to tie it heading into the fourth because a touchdown was called back for holding before Greg Zuerlein missed a chip-shot field goal.
Zuerlein wasn’t done undercutting his team’s chances at victory, as he doinked another field goal off the post in the fourth quarter with an opportunity to take the lead. He wasn’t the only kicker with issues, as Tyler Bass missed an extra point and a field goal on the other side.
To Bass’ credit, he hit what proved to be the game-winning field goal in the final four minutes, as Rodgers was unable to lead his team down the field for the winning score on the ensuing possession and was instead picked off.
Things don’t get much easier for the struggling Jets after this, as they take their losing streak on the road to face the Pittsburgh Steelers.
