Heading into Monday night’s game, the Chargers had been well aware of the Jets’ success against some of the league’s top quarterbacks. New York forced a combined 10 turnovers against the Eagles, Bills, and Chiefs, winning two of those games and coming close in the third.
While head coach Robert Saleh walked back his previous comments about their defense “embarrassing” the likes of Jalen Hurts, Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes, any quarterback facing them knows they can expect a tough time.
The Jets did the same thing to Justin Herbert on Monday night. The 25-year old was held to a career-low 136 yards on 30 pass attempts, had the fourth-worst completion percentage of his career and didn’t throw a touchdown pass for just the fifth time since being drafted in 2020.
As usual, the Jets brought plenty of pressure, sacking the star QB five times and hitting him 13 more times, forcing him to get rid of the ball or affecting the accuracy of his throws on numerous occasions. It didn’t prevent the Chargers from ultimately cruising to a comfortable 27-6 win that left both teams 4-4 in a log-jammed AFC playoff picture, though.
Last season, the Jets began the year 7-4, only to flounder down the stretch with six straight losses -- and their inability to create a turnover was a major factor in this. That might be the most concerning trend emerging from yesterday’s loss.
The Chargers forced three Jets turnovers, while Gang Green was unable to create any and the LA offense was just efficient enough to get the job done, despite being outgained 270-191 on the night.
While the Jets wouldn’t blame this all on bad luck, they can be entitled to bemoan the fact that a few more bounces didn’t go their way. The Chargers now only recovered three Jets fumbles, returning one of them to the two-yard line to set up a decisive score. They also recovered three of their own fumbles.
Perhaps the game’s pivotal moment came when the Jets finally induced a potentially major mistake from Herbert, who held the ball for a beat too long and had it jarred loose by a big Will McDonald hit. This would've given the Jets the ball in the red zone late in the third quarter down 11 with a big chance to cut it to a one-score game. However, the ball bounced right back to Herbert and he didn’t make the same mistake again.
In fact, it was on that drive where Herbert played his best football of the day, converting two third down throws to Keenan Allen and another to rookie Quentin Johnston. The resulting 16-play drive ended in a field goal to extend the Los Angeles lead to 20-6 and had to have crushed the Jets' spirit as over eight minutes came off the clock to curb the momentum of any possible comeback.
The concern for the Jets has to be that their own offensive failings allow teams to play conservatively, avoid the turnovers that New York has to create to beat good teams, and take advantage of mistakes to defeat them. This was the blueprint for teams down the stretch last season and, until the Jets offense can display that it has the firepower to keep pace even when constantly hampered by slow starts, it’s something most of their upcoming opponents may also seek to adopt.
The most telling statistic from Monday night might be the number of times Robert Saleh and Zach Wilson combined to utter the phrase “self-inflicted wounds” or said that the Jets have to avoid shooting themselves in the foot. Clearly they realize how their own errors are undermining their abilities to win games, by enabling other teams to be patient and conservative so they can simply wait for the Jets to beat themselves.
Worryingly, every other team in the NFL knows this, too.