The Jets really should’ve awarded Sunday's game ball to Ravens defensive lineman Timmy Jernigan. Of course, Jernigan surely would’ve dropped it.
Jernigan has been a solid contributor to Baltimore’s defensive front since joining the team as a second-round pick in 2014, proving adept against both the pass and the run.
But he’s not much as a ball carrier.
Jernigan kept the Jets’ fainter-than-faint postseason hopes alive at MetLife Stadium when he gave away the ball he’d gotten off of Matt Forte’s fumble mere nanoseconds before. The Jets’ best player, Brandon Marshall, swatted the ball away from Jernigan and got it back for the home team, and two plays later Forte was in for the decisive score in the much-needed (major understatement) win. Actually, for that play alone, Marshall should get the game ball (he can steal it from Jernigan again), even though he played one of his worst games in green, having come down with a severe case of the drops.
The Jets weren’t good against the Ravens, but luckily, the visitors were worse. After about 8 million (OK, 176) passes without an interception, QB Joe Flacco got picked off on two straight series in the third quarter, while his banged-up squad couldn’t get any kind of running game going. Terrance West led the team with 10 yards, half of them coming in Baltimore’s longest run of the day.
The latest stage of the nightmarish Geno Smith era ended quickly, on a day when the best thing you could say about either the Jets’ starting quarterback or the guy who replaced him -- Ryan Fitzpatrick -- is that, unlike Flacco, neither one threw it to the other team.
You could say much more about Forte, who seemingly turned back the clock with his best performance as a Jet, gobbling up 100 yards on 30 attempts and another 50-plus yards through the air for good measure.
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Gang Green needed everything it could get from their 30-year-old RB because running mate Bilal Powell was basically put on ice after Smith injured his knee in the second quarter. With Fitz the only Jets QB not in street clothes in the second half, Powell was serving as the emergency signal-caller -- a fact that made the local fans only slightly less nervous than the idea of either Smith or Fitzpatrick under center.
Rookie WR Robby Anderson also made his presence felt with a pair of big plays, one on a great grab of a high Fitz fastball and the other on a trick run where the undrafted free agent from Temple put his impressive wheels on full display.
At 2-5, the Jets’ saving grace is that the AFC is filled with so many mediocre teams that nine wins will likely secure a playoff berth. That said, the notion that this sorry crew can triumph in seven of its last nine games seems preposterous. But hey, there’s no better place to start than Cleveland -- where the Jets play this coming Sunday.
