KANSAS CITY, Mo. — This one had a little something for everyone.
For those who dream of escorting general manager John Idzik to the gangplank, there was yet another display of just how little talent the Jets have among their 53-man squad — this time against the Chiefs, a team that exists, at best, on the fringe of the AFC’s playoff picture and spends most every other weekend bemoaning their own thin roster.
For the growing list of folks jumping off coach Rex Ryan’s rapidly evacuating bus, there were plenty of head-scratching moments, and there were two more inexplicably blown second-half time-outs, and there was more generally haphazard play on both sides of the ball, another week when the Jets were a hot mess. It isn’t that they’re poorly coached so much as vaguely coached.
And for the old-schoolers, the fatalists who simply believe a higher power has been out to get the Jets for 46 years … well, there was something for them, too. There was one of the Jets’ few defensive highlights of the afternoon — Calvin Pace deflecting a pass from Alex Smith deep in Jets territory, rare evidence of assertion from the part of the defense that was supposed to be a positive …
… and of course — of COURSE — the ball ricocheted right off Pace’s hands into those belonging to Chiefs tight end Anthony Fasano.
Fasano happened to be seated on the ground at the moment, but he was able to nudge himself the final few inches into the end zone. It was 14-0 Kansas City, on the way to 24-10 Kansas City, on the way to 1-8 for the Jets, on the way, full speed, toward oblivion.
“No different than the rest of the team,” Ryan said after being asked how he felt about the sheer ugliness of that record, the already appalling season it represents. “We’re all stunned. We’re all hurt.”
They’re all plainly numbed by it, too. They have reached that station of a season that all lousy teams reach eventually, when momentum and gravity replace fire and brimstone, when each loss becomes more inevitable than the one before. The Jets of the last 4 ½ decades have had enough of these lost years that you can recognize the signs pretty quickly.
Were they awful? Well, certainly if you’re judging by the eight games that came before, they were not. There wasn’t a single turnover. The Jets actually out-gained the Chiefs by 55 yards. There wasn’t the usual head-scratching personal foul or unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty.
There just wasn’t a minute — literally — when you felt like the Jets were even remotely in this game. The Chiefs took the opening kickoff and marched 81 easy yards in 12 breezy plays, facing only one third down the whole time, facing minimal resistance. The 74,127 inside Arrowhead barely needed to clear their throats (which is just as well, since most of them are still hoarse from the Baseball October they enjoyed around here) before it was clear to all what a comfortable day lay ahead.
Football isn’t supposed to look that easy.
Then again, it isn’t supposed to look as hard as the Jets make it look, either.
“We are doing everything right, but it’s not showing on the scoreboard,” defensive lineman Damon Harrison said. “You can see things coming along, but it seems we can’t make a big play when it’s there.”
A note about that, by the way: The Jets have now played nine games. They have forced three turnovers. THREE. (And one was all but gift-wrapped for them by Aaron Rodgers in Week 2.) Think about that, especially if you are inclined to believe this calamity belongs solely in the breadbaskets of Geno Smith and Idzik. This is a DEFENSE-FIRST football team, will be for as long as it’s run by Ryan, and it is now officially ahead of pace — and by a lot — of the record for fewest turnovers generated in a season, which was 11 by last year’s Texans.
Last year’s 2-14 Texans.
Which sounds about right.
“We’re not closing things, out,” Ryan said. “That’s what good teams do, what winning teams do.”
The Jets are neither right now, and they are so far from being there, they need the Hubbell telescope to see it. Where they are now is that dark, desolate place where terrible teams take up residence, where seasons go to die when they’re not even half complete.