Aaron Glenn did not try to hide how the Jets felt. “It’s an understatement to say that we’re all disappointed in the way this one ended,” the Jets head coach said after Sunday’s 38-33 loss to the Las Vegas Raiders at MetLife Stadium. He was asked how a team loses after scoring on its first six possessions. “That’s exactly it,” he said. “You can’t lose a game in that aspect when things like that happen. And again, we got to get better on defense.”
The loss dropped the Jets to 2-6. Geno Smith threw for 290 yards and two touchdowns, Braelon Allen ran for 147 yards and a touchdown, and Adonai Mitchell had a career-high 142 receiving yards on seven catches. But Kirk Cousins threw three touchdown passes, two to Brock Bowers, and ran for another, and Dylan Laube returned a kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown seconds after the Jets had taken a 13-7 lead. It was the league’s first kickoff-return touchdown of the season.
“We can’t give up a touchdown on the kickoff”
Glenn said the offense “did a really good job of moving the ball,” with the run game, explosive plays and the work to get Garrett Wilson and Mitchell involved. “And still, there were plays out there I thought we left on the field,” he said. Then he went through the rest. “Defense, we got to find a way to get better at what we’re doing. Special teams, we got to find a way to get better at what we’re doing,” he said. “We can’t give up a touchdown on the kickoff. That’s obvious.”
He said he has to “dig deep” and figure out how to fix the defense. “We started out early in the year, and then we kind of slowed down,” he said. Later he added: “We can’t give up that many points and expect to win. We can’t give up a kick return for a touchdown and expect to win. Those things are hard to recover from, and plus, man, it just sucks the life out of the whole building.” He thanked the home crowd. “I thought our fans did a great job of creating momentum for all of us,” he said.
Third-down penalties and the red zone
Glenn pointed to penalties on third down. “I think we had a couple of third-down penalties that allowed them to continue to move the ball,” he said. The Raiders converted 7 of 11 third downs. He also said the Jets have to be better in the red zone “on both sides.” The Jets scored touchdowns on two of six red-zone trips and settled for four Jason Sanders field goals, while Las Vegas went 4-for-4. “I think we were like two for five or two for six on offense, and then they scored, I think, every time on defense,” Glenn said. “I got to do a better job.”
He was asked why the defense has twice been unable to get a late stop and give the ball back to the offense. After Sanders cut the lead to 35-33 with 4:31 left, the Raiders ran most of the clock out before Matt Gay’s 53-yard field goal with 27 seconds to go. “That goes back to play call,” Glenn said. “And it goes back to us executing. Because obviously we know what they’re going to do. We know they’re going to run the ball, right? So we’ve got to make sure we’re in the right call, and then we’ve got to make sure we execute the call the right way. That’s a shared responsibility from coaches and players. That’s not just on players.”
The plan that worked, and the last two throws
Glenn said there were parts of the day he was proud of, including how the Jets managed the game. He said the team talked about it in practice and in its Saturday night meetings, and that deferring the opening kickoff to get the ball in the second half “worked out to a tee.” Before Sanders’ field goal with nine seconds left in the first half, the Jets had been outscored 107-6 in the last two minutes of first halves since Glenn took over.
On the last drive, the Jets wanted two shots at the end zone. Glenn said a completion in bounds would have forced them to spike the ball for one more throw, so they went deep. “We want to make sure that we got two shots at it,” he said, hoping the Raiders would expect a shorter throw. Smith’s final pass from the Las Vegas 35 was intercepted in the end zone by Jeremy Chinn with seven seconds left.
Asked if he was upset that the team is still looking for answers in November, Glenn said yes. “I’m upset in general because of where we’re at as a team,” he said. “If I want to put my thumb on something, that’s it.”
Allen, Hall and Bailey
Running back Breece Hall and edge rusher David Bailey were both inactive. Glenn said Hall “is close” but the team will not rush him. “He’s an important part of what we’re doing, of what we’re building,” he said. “We want to make sure he’s fully healthy before putting him out there, because what we don’t want is a setback. Same with Bailey. We don’t want a setback.” He said several players had minor injuries but returned to the game, and that he will give updates later in the week.
He had a short answer on Allen, who ran 21 times for 147 yards and scored from 21 yards out in the third quarter. “Obviously, Braelon did a hell of a job,” Glenn said. “I think he had close to 150 yards, so I think that speaks for itself.”
The Jets visit the Kansas City Chiefs next Sunday, November 8, at 1 p.m. ET, which is 8 p.m. in Cairo.
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