The First Defeat
A bunch of mistakes, and a desperate opponent was a lethal combination that the Jets ran into in week 3. Todd Bowles’s New York Jets suffered their first loss of the season, and his first loss as a head coach at MetLife stadium, 24-17 to the Philadelphia Eagles.This continued a lifetime trend for the Jets of losing to the Eagles. They now stand at 0-10 all time versus the Eagles.
The desperate team was the Philadelphia Eagles. They came into the season with very lofty expectations, but came into week 3 at 0-2. The team had been hearing the hometown turn on them, Chip Kelly’s was hearing the whispers that he is nothing but a college coach, and the team responded.
The Jets showed a lot of guts fighting to make this a game, after falling behind 24-0. But the same problem that has haunted this franchise year after year, reared its ugly head again on this Sunday. They do not have a quarterback, and until they do, they can’t win in the current NFL structure.
As for the Todd Bowles watch, the one big negative is that he has made a ridiculously poor challenge, for three consecutive weeks now which costed the team time-outs on each occasion. This issue needs to be corrected. The defense did make stop after stop after the halftime adjustments, so that is a very big positive also.
It’s time to find out what kind of team the Jets are and what kind of coach the Jets have. 2-1 is better than most prognosticators would have projected for this team. Now the first true test for a head coach, how do you respond to a loss? How do you prepare your team for their first division game against the Dolphins next Sunday? And lastly how do you get your team mentally and physically ready for a 9:30am start on London?
We will find out soon enough, on to England.
