Geno Smith — not great performance. Too early to tell how season will turn out
Sunday The New York Jets breezed through a sluggish 19-14 season opener summer day victory at MetLife Stadium over the hapless Oakland Raiders, but a storm is brewing in the horizon for them this season.
The opening day jitters was apparent and plagued the Jets as they committed six penalties and two turn overs (a fumble and an interception) and took a 10-3 lead into halftime leaving the opening day crowd in the midst of boos.
In the second half, the Jets committed five more penalties for a game total of 105 yards, but the cacophony of boos changed into cheers midway as the fan base at the stadium stirred up emotions raised the decibel level to influx the Raiders into two false starts, one delay of game, and they were forced into using one timeout.
“I’m excited to get a win. On a positive note, our fans were awesome. They were absolutely awesome. They were so loud. It was great,” says head coach Rex Ryan. “That’s what home-field advantage is supposed to be, and it was today. I want to complement our fans. They were better than our team today.”
During the second half, The Jets needed help. The Raiders had a chance in the fourth quarter to win the game when the score 13-7, Jets favor with 10 minutes left to the game. It was third down, Jet’s ball. The next play, Geno Smith was sacked by Oakland’s safety, Tyvon Branch. Ball in Oakland’s position. Crucial time in the game and that’s when the fan’s thunder shifted for the Jet’s defense.
Raiders rookie quarterback Derek Carr threw an incompletion for the first play; second drive, the Jets’ defensive line, which was ranked third in the league, holding opponents to just 3.35 yards per carry last season. They stuffed running back Maurice Jones Drew for a one yard loss, and then on the next play, Carr connected with wide receiver Denarius Moore for eight yards, not enough for the first down.
And on the first drive, the Jets’ running back Chris Ivory sliced his way through Oakland’s offensive line for a 71-yard touchdown, the longest rush of his career. “It felt good. It’s a great way to start the season,” said Ivory. “Now we’ve just got to continue to take it game-by-game, day-by-day, continue to just progress and play to win every game.”
Ivory completed the game with 10 carries for 102 yards. In his season opening debut, Chris Johnson who was picked up by the Jets for the 2104 season had 13 carries for 68 yards and five catches for 23 yards and a touchdown. The Jets had 212 rushing yards and 402 total yards for the game.
The Jets are a solid running team. Another plus for the Jet is defense, the New York Jets each year during Ryan’s tenure as head coach have been rated in the tops in the NFL.
This season they upgraded their running game by picking up Johnson who rushed for 1,077 yards in 2013, and they purchased reliable Wes Welker as a receiver and Michael Vick as a backup to Smith, who started all 16 games last season with a 66.5 QB rating, which ESPN polled him as the worst starting quarterback in the league.“
Obviously, we would like to play a lot better and we would like to not have those situations, and not have those turnovers and penalties. But there is lots of room for improvement,” said Smith. “You can look at it two ways. You can look at it as something that can be our downfall, or you can look at it as something we can straighten out now. Moving forward you get better at that, and I think we will, I know we have a bunch of guys that are very prideful on offense.”
Sunday, Smith had one interception; lost a fumble, recovered another; suffered two sacks; but he made 23 connection on 28 attempts for 221 total yards for a career high rating of 82%.
And most importantly, the Jets got the win, but the Jets are not going to face an opponent like the Raiders for their next game.
They will face Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers with the likes of Jay Cutler, Matthew Stafford, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, and Tom Brady; one after the other, so a storm is brewing, wind circulating, pushing current into cumulonimbus clouds as the thunder builds its tempo on the season of the Jets. Will they be prepared?
Stay tuned.
