NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The postgame expressions worn by members of the Jets organization told the story Sunday.
Jets owner Christopher Johnson walked out of the locker room ashen. General manager Mike Maccagnan stood in a hallway with a thousand-mile stare. Coach Todd Bowles had fire in his eyes that he rarely shows publicly.
Inside the losers’ locker room, players sat on their chairs, shaking their heads, facing their lockers wearing looks of frustration, disbelief and sadness.
Moments earlier the Titans had just ripped their hearts out, handing the Jets a 26-22 loss in unreal fashion when Marcus Mariota completed an 11-yard pass to Corey Davis for the go-ahead touchdown with 36 seconds left in the game. It was the Titans’ first lead of the game and sent the reeling Jets to their sixth consecutive loss and a 3-9 record.
The Jets led by 16 points in the first half and by nine in the fourth quarter and looked like they would show some life in this dead season. Instead, they collapsed.
“We beat ourselves,” said cornerback Trumaine Johnson, who committed a crucial penalty in the final moments of the game. “I hate losing. I hate losing. I hate losing. If you look back at this game, we dominated them for most of the game. We came up short.”
The Jets did what losing teams do.
Losing teams kick field goals instead of score touchdowns. The Jets kicked five field goals and scored no touchdowns on offense, going 0-for-3 in the red zone.
Losing teams commit silly penalties. The Jets had 11 in the game, three on the Titans’ game-winning drive.
Losing teams don’t close out games. The Jets had five possessions in the fourth quarter — punt, punt, punt, punt, interception.
Make no mistake, the Jets are a losing team.
Afterward, Bowles looked as angry as he has after any loss since he has been Jets coach.
“I’m fuming,” Bowles said. “It may not show here, but yeah, I’m fuming.”
The Jets entered the fourth quarter with a 22-13 lead. They had gotten inspired play from their special teams, including kicker Jason Myers going 5-for-5 on field goals. They scored a touchdown on defense when Johnson returned a Mariota interception 31 yards for a touchdown in the first quarter, snapping their five-game drought without a takeaway.
They were in control of the game … until they weren’t.
The Jets kept punting and the Titans got two field goals, the last one coming with 5:39 left to cut the lead to 22-19. The Titans, who had struggled for most of the game, started hitting big plays with three passes of more than 40 yards in the fourth quarter.
The Jets managed just two first downs in the fourth quarter. They handed the Titans the ball back with 1:46 to play at their own 14. The first play was wiped out by offsetting penalties. On second-and-10, Leonard Williams and Henry Anderson sacked Mariota. But Jordan Jenkins was penalized for illegal use of hands, wiping out the sack and giving the Titans a first down.
On the next play, Mariota took off and gained 25 yards before recovering his own fumble. Johnson was called for a facemask penalty, tacking 15 yards onto the run and setting Tennesee up at the Jets’ 39. A 25-yard pass to tight end Anthony Firkser got the Titans into the red zone. On third-and-7 from the Jets’ 11, Mariota found Davis for the game-winning touchdown, sending Nissan Stadium into a frenzy and the Jets bench into disbelief. Malcolm Butler would end the game officially with an interception of Josh McCown 16 seconds later, sending the Titans to 6-6 and keeping their playoff hopes alive.
“We tried to finish the game,” Williams said. “Nobody purposefully let up. It just happened at the worst time. We’re all winners — you don’t get to this level without being a winner. We want to win. But we’re not winning right now.”
After the game, Bowles told his team it won’t win with all of these penalties. He described himself as “pissed off,” a rare show of emotion for the beleaguered coach.
“I don’t know how many we had, but it felt like we had one on every play,” Bowles said of the flags. “It costs us and it’s disgusting.”
The Jets players rallied around Bowles, who is expected to be fired after the season, saying he did not deserve the blame for the penalties. Terribly timed penalties have been an issue for the Jets under Bowles, something that reflects poorly on him, even if his players don’t want to hear that.
“It bothers me that I keep hearing that because it’s not their fault,” safety Jamal Adams said. “We’re grown men. We get paid to play this game. As grown men, we get paid to play a kid’s game and we get paid king money. We have to go out there and execute our job. All week, they gave us the best game plan. We didn’t go out there and execute it to the end.”
Cornerback Morris Claiborne, who was called for three penalties (one offsetting) may have summed it up best: “I feel like we’re disciplined but [bleep] happens sometimes in the heat of a game.”
The Jets’ season has been finished for weeks, but they gave their fans some false hope for a few more moments Sunday, teasing them only to break their hearts … again.
“We gave that game to them by us not doing our job, us making penalties in the end and just not finishing the ballgame,” Adams said. “That game was simply on us. We gave the game to them.”