Geno Smith Can’t Get off Runway as Jets Lose to Dolphins

Finally, with 1:57 left on the clock, after the Dolphins had pushed through against an otherwise stout Jets’ defense to take a 16-13 lead, the Jets gave Smith his last chance at the heroic ending: Two minutes left, ball at his own 20-yard line, two timeouts and the chance to win or tie the game. It wasn’t Smith’s fault that his team was down. The special teams had surrendered a blocked punt for the second straight week and the normally reliable Nick Folk had missed two field goals. But Smith could fix all that now.

He completed three quick passes, leading the Jets to their own 44-yard line. Then on a first-and-10 with 38 seconds on the clock, he fired a deep pass down the middle for tight end Jeff Cumberland. Guarding Cumberland was Miami’s Jelani Jenkins, who never turned to look for the pass. The ball nicked Jenkins’s right arm and bounced into the air, landing in the arms of Miami’s Reshad Jones for the game-clinching interception.

“Anything but a game-ending pick,” Jets fans must have thought when Smith took the field for the final drive. He hadn’t committed a turnover all night. But that is how it ended, like a bad play that foreshadows the obvious ending in Act 1.

Finally, with 1:57 left on the clock, after the Dolphins had pushed through against an otherwise stout Jets’ defense to take a 16-13 lead, the Jets gave Smith his last chance at the heroic ending: Two minutes left, ball at his own 20-yard line, two timeouts and the chance to win or tie the game. It wasn’t Smith’s fault that his team was down. The special teams had surrendered a blocked punt for the second straight week and the normally reliable Nick Folk had missed two field goals. But Smith could fix all that now.

He completed three quick passes, leading the Jets to their own 44-yard line. Then on a first-and-10 with 38 seconds on the clock, he fired a deep pass down the middle for tight end Jeff Cumberland. Guarding Cumberland was Miami’s Jelani Jenkins, who never turned to look for the pass. The ball nicked Jenkins’s right arm and bounced into the air, landing in the arms of Miami’s Reshad Jones for the game-clinching interception.

“Anything but a game-ending pick,” Jets fans must have thought when Smith took the field for the final drive. He hadn’t committed a turnover all night. But that is how it ended, like a bad play that foreshadows the obvious ending in Act 1.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J.—In this catastrophic season, the Jets have endured a shutout under the scorching San Diego sun, anagonizing squeaker in the New England chill and two inexplicable blowouts against the Bills.

Monday night’s 16-13 loss to the Miami Dolphins wasn’t the most devastating defeat of the year, but it was the most telling. On what surely must be its last nationally televised game this season, the team essentially delivered its State of the Jets address. Not only was it bleak and blunt, as to be expected from a 2-10 squad, it was also bizarre.

The game was supposed to be about the salvation of Geno Smith. The 24-year-old quarterback began the season as the starter, but his interceptions sank his team’s playoffs hopes and earned him a benching. After watching Smith’s backup, veteran Michael Vick , flounder for three games, head coach Rex Ryan gave the youngster his second chance, plugging him back in to start against Miami.

Smith never got a fair shot. The Jets wound up running 49 running plays for an impressive 277 yards in a game that also saw them gain a total of 49 passing yards, falling to 2-10 in their race to the bottom of the NFL with the Giants.

The weirdness began before kickoff, when the stadium’s announcer individually introduced the offense’s starters, excluding Smith. The quarterback said after the game that he chose to forgo the introduction. He wanted the focus to be on his team, not himself, he said. Asked directly whether he wanted to avoid getting booed by the MetLife Stadium fans, who have jeered him all season for his incompletions and interceptions, he said, “No.”

When the game started, something about it didn’t seem quite right, either. The Jets didn’t want Smith to throw the ball. They relied on handoffs and trickery, at one point calling nine consecutive running plays in the second quarter, on a drive that ended with a missed field goal. Smith finished the game completing seven of 13 pass attempts for 65 yards, with no touchdowns and one interception, quietly piloting a Jets offense content to outrush the Dolphins and hope that he didn’t make too many mistakes.

For one quarter, it worked. Greg Salas scored on a 20-yard touchdown run to give the Jets the early 7-0 lead, and they stretched it to 10-3 at halftime, gaining 210 yards on 29 carries, with Smith completing three of six pass attempts.

In the second half, the strategy hit the wall. The Dolphins began stacking defenders near the line of scrimmage to meet Chris Johnson and Chris Ivory, who gained 167 combined yards in the game, including one 47-yard, first-quarter burst for Johnson. Yet in the third quarter, the Jets never attempted a pass on first or second down. They kicked a field goal and went three-and-out on consecutive drives, gaining a total of -4 yards.

The plan reached peak absurdity on the opening drive of the fourth quarter. Clinging to a 13-10 lead and pinned at their own 5-yard line, the Jets kept the ball on the ground with running plays to John Conner and Ivory, for no gain. On third-and-10, rather than attempt a throw, Smith again handed the ball to Ivory on a run to the right, and the waiting Dolphins defenders stuffed him for a 1-yard loss. Ryan Quigley punted from the Jets’ end zone and Miami took over at the New York 39, tying the game six plays later on a 4-yard Lamar Miller run.

The Dolphins entered the evening with the league’s fourth-best pass defense in terms of yards per game. But they were missing injured cornerbacks Cortland Finnegan and Jamar Taylor, and it was clear that their second-half focus was on stopping the run. Why not have Smith throw? The Jets’ season is lost, and Ryan said last week that he wanted to see whether Smith had learned from his benching. 

Finally, with 1:57 left on the clock, after the Dolphins had pushed through against an otherwise stout Jets’ defense to take a 16-13 lead, the Jets gave Smith his last chance at the heroic ending: Two minutes left, ball at his own 20-yard line, two timeouts and the chance to win or tie the game. It wasn’t Smith’s fault that his team was down. The special teams had surrendered a blocked punt for the second straight week and the normally reliable Nick Folk had missed two field goals. But Smith could fix all that now.

He completed three quick passes, leading the Jets to their own 44-yard line. Then on a first-and-10 with 38 seconds on the clock, he fired a deep pass down the middle for tight end Jeff Cumberland. Guarding Cumberland was Miami’s Jelani Jenkins, who never turned to look for the pass. The ball nicked Jenkins’s right arm and bounced into the air, landing in the arms of Miami’s Reshad Jones for the game-clinching interception.

“Anything but a game-ending pick,” Jets fans must have thought when Smith took the field for the final drive. He hadn’t committed a turnover all night. But that is how it ended, like a bad play that foreshadows the obvious ending in Act 1.