FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — One play, Geno. Just one more play, one more pass.
Go win the game.
He tried.
Go tie the game.
He tried.
He couldn’t.
No medals for trying.
“Not good enough,” Geno Smith said. “Spotty at times. I had opportunities there. Just didn’t get the job done.”
The Jets were playing as if to save Rex Ryan.
They were playing as if Ryan had eaten iron bars at the Wednesday night team meeting and in the locker room before the game.
They were playing with a snarling rage. Chris Ivory already had 100 rushing yards on the first possession of the third quarter.
They were Mean Green, looking for a fight.
Perhaps it was the sight of the Patriots that made their blood boil and reminded them of the hatred.
Perhaps it was their desperation, being sick and tired of being sick and tired, losers of five in a row.
They were playing as if they would have been forced at gunpoint to kiss Bill Belichick’s rings.
And Geno Smith, he wasn’t doing the things that cause your team to lose the game.
Not once did he scream “F–k you!” at a fan. He didn’t miss any team meetings. He was trying so very hard to write a narrative that even the media could not misinterpret.
And yet on his best night of the season (20-for-34, 226 yards, one TD, 37 yards rushing), a night in which he didn’t turn the ball over, not once, a night in which he threw the late touchdown pass to Jeff Cumberland that pulled the Jets to within 27-25, he could not complete the last pass, the pass that would have tied the game with 2 ¹/₂ minutes left of Patriots 27, Jets 25.
Geno’s Law, formerly Murphy’s Law.
It had been the beginning of the fourth quarter and Ryan and the Jets, trailing 20-19, asked Smith to go win the game.
On third-and-5, he was sacked by a jailbreak for a 15-yard loss.
Gang Green stopped Tom Brady.
Go win the game.
Smith had it at his 4 with 12:29 left.
At the end of an incompletion for Cumberland, Chris Jones felled Smith by the legs and Smith was down and out, and Michael Vick was in.
“Kinda felt some pain in my knee,” Smith said.
Vick scrambled around left end for 6 yards.
And here came Smith back to replace him.
He tried for Eric Decker, who couldn’t hang onto the ball with Darrelle Revis, who looked human at times, draped all over him.
Brady, starting at the Jets’ 46 following a horrific 30-yard punt by Ryan Quigley, found Danny Amendola with the inexcusable 19-yard TD pass on third-and-goal against Antonio Allen. It was Patriots 27, Jets 19.
Now Ryan asked Smith to go tie the game.
Smith started at his 14, 7:42 left.
He hit Jeremy Kerley over the middle for 16 yards.
A few plays later, he hit Cumberland for 12 yards. He was 34 yards away. Some Ground and Pound got him to the 14.
Third-and-6, 2:36 left, Smith stood tall and rifled a 10-yard TD pass to Cumberland.
“I thought Geno played his best game tonight,” David Nelson said.
Go tie the game.
Smith looked right, a fade into the pylon for Jace Amaro.
Who had beaten Patrick Chung.
And Smith overthrew him.
“I got to give him a better ball,” Smith said. “That’s completely on me.”
“Just a little bit miscommunication,” Amaro said.
How so?
“I guess he thought I was going to come more inside on that,” Amaro said. “Threw it a little bit more flat. We’ve been practicing that play for a while. Never had any problems with it. But … just missed it when it mattered most.”
Amaro was asked how close it was to his outstretched hand.
“It was probably about a couple of inches away. Maybe if I would have gotten my head turned around a little bit quicker, but I’m taught to look up in the air. Didn’t see the ball until it was almost parallel to my face.”
One last chance, from his 12, 1:06 and no timeouts left.
Go win the game.
Smith hit Chris Johnson for 8 yards, then Johnson again for 11, soon hit David Nelson for 11, then Kerley for 13.
“I think you can kind of outthink yourself and I’ve done that in the past, but today I just stuck to my fundamentals and what I’ve been coached to do,” Smith said.
He was at the New England 45, 14 seconds left.
He threw to Ivory for 5 and out of bounds.
Eight left.
Incomplete for Kerley.
Nick Folk for a 58-yard field goal to win it.
Blocked by Jones.
Of course it was.
“We know we’re good enough to win,” an agitated, exasperated Ryan said.
If they were good enough to win, they would have won.