The Mistake By The Lake
I would have posted sooner, but my internet connection is causing me fits at home. I went out to watch the Jets game and all I can say is that I am pretty disappointed with the result. Partly because the Jets didn’t play up to their potential, but the referreeing was horrendous.
I think that I am pretty fair & impartial when it comes to my favorite team and calls that go for or against my rooting interest, but I can think of three specific instances where the Jets got shafted by the zebras. I feel I can be pretty level headed about this stuff, but when I start thinking the refs are caught up with underworld crime bosses, that’s pretty bad. Now I admit, I was watching the game with the sound off, at a terrible little bar where they have the nice flat screen TVs, but with analog feed, which drives absolutely insane. Note to readers, if you are going to buy the kickass TV go all out and get the right cables and HD feed as well, otherwise you look like the guy with the tricked out Kia.
I wish I had been keeping better track during the game, but I feel like there were a number of no-calls on the Browns secondary … defensive holding calls that should have favored the Jets. I remember a lot of physical play between Coles and whoever was defending him, and a good deal of contact while the ball was in the air. Here are three bad calls that I can remember off the top of my head:
3) Jerricho Cotchery held on an out – I wish I could remember when this occurred, but it was a simple out pattern, and as Cotch made the cut, the defender pulled him and he stumbled as tried to get to the ball.
2) The muffed punt – With the Jets stalling on a drive Ben Graham sends a punt through the hands of the returner, who as soon as the ball goes by him, runs like hell to get to the punt. If he didn’t touch the ball, why would he run so damn hard to retreive the ball? I can’t tell what the initial call was since there was no sound where I watched the game …
1) Baker TD catch – Clearly a push out. He goes up for the ball in bounds while running on a line that would have taken paralell to the sideline. He gets plowed into by a defender in the air and comes down out of bounds.
I have to say, I am pretty pissed about this game, but truth be told, the three turnovers, bad offense and defense for most of the game didn’t help the team. I feel like the Jets got gypped, but at the same time, they shouldn’t have been in a two minute drill situation to tie the game against the Browns either.
25 Responses to The Mistake By The Lake
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Salesmunn says:
How can you not be disappointed! I said last week that they were “winning the games they should win,” Cleveland doesn’t suck, but they aren’t better than the Jets. They out-toughed the Jets this week and it’s not the first time I’ve seen this.
The only positive for me is that I missed the entire game because I was out of town. I can’t imagine the heartbreak of that Baker TD if I were watching live.
I came home, watched the highlights, saw Baker make that nice catch in the endzone and then get pushed out of bounds. I actually fist-pumped watching him get bumped out, “Oh yeah! Touchdown!”
That was a pretty blatant push out of bounds, did they review that?
If it’s any consolation, after watching the game played back, their defense is so porous that I’m sure Cleveland’s running game would’ve just torched them in Overtime anyway.
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scapp says:
Despite the turnovers and poor offense, those 2 calls killed it for the Jets. It would have been a much different game had they scored off that tipped punt.. Anyone with common sense would immediately think if the guy chases after the ball, he probably touched it… Therefore, the refs have no common sense. And the NFL should seriously think about making that endzone play a reviewable one. That was no doubt a TD. There’s 14 points stolen from the Jets.
Oh, and I have Direct TV, NFL Ticket, and an HDMI Cable, and watched the game in analog too.. For some reason they weren’t broadcasting in HD. Maybe the Browns spent all their money bribing the refs and couldn’t afford the HD Cameras. -
Rob K says:
Let me start by saying that I agree with the thoughts about the Jets playing poorly and how they shouldn’t have been in a last minute situation against Cleveland. However, they fought back and deserved a fair ruling on that last play. I have a question that I’d like to throw out there: since it was under 2 minutes in the fourth quarter, I think the coaches can’t challenge as there should be automatic reviews from the officials. If a close play occurs during this time and a team still has challenges left, shouldn’t they be allowed to still ask for a review even if the officials don’t feel a review is warranted? I understand that it wasn’t conclusive after the replays to say that Baker would have come down in bounds, but for the love of God his feet were only about 3 inches off the ground, he was going forward with his momentum and was clearly hit by a defender who knocked him out of bounds. I just don’t see how the official on the field could make that call without the officials in the review booth wanting to take a second look. If this happened to the Colts, the NFL would probably issue an appology to the team and fire the officials.
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jerry says:
Since this is considered a “judgment” call–just like pass interference–it is not reviewable.
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The Ed(itor) says:
What can I say. This is is only league without full time officials and the only league where the Officials suck every week. Even with instant replay they suck. That was a Jets TD 99 out of 100 times. The reason it wasn’t? The FIX WAS IN GUYS! The Refs were blind but had money on the game, so the BROWNS won. Plain and simple.
I am giving up on the NFL until they hire fulll time refs. Until then, I am going golfing every Sunday.The Ed(itor)
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The law of gravity isn’t a judgement call. Baker was coming down.
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Dennis says:
On the muffed punt, the ruling on the field was no touch, and it was upheld in the booth. I don’t think there was enough to overturn it on the review.
The call on Baker was a total joke, it wasn’t even close IMO. And it wasn’t until last night I found out it wasn’t reviewable, which is also a total joke. Judgement calls should be reviewable – heck, they’re all judgement calls.
That aside, Pennington was awful. (Of course this is the week I had to play him on my fantasy team because Hasselback is out and he got negative points, but I have LT so I won pretty easily anyway. But I digress.) It didn’t help that he always seemed to be under pressure – how many passes were tipped?
So unless we can upset NE or the Bears, I think we’re looking at 9-7 at best, which probably won’t be good enough for a playoff spot. But considering how things looked coming into the season, I would’ve thought we’d be nuts to even be mentioning the playoffs after 8 weeks.
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Jay says:
Too much cute B. Smith stuff on 3rd and short, killed the Offensive flow.
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Forget the blown call. The JETS can’t frickin stop the run! Enough of this BS Teddy Cottrell defense.
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Chad was bad and as I said in an earlier thread (and someone else mentioned), I’m wondering if he isn’t hurt again. Last week and this week, his passes were not crisp like they were at the beginning of the season. He definitely was throwing ducks and rainbows — I think I actually heard quacking on the interception that was intended for McCareins.
But once again my friends, big picture: If at the beginning of the season you were told the Jets would be 4-4 at the halfway point with about a half dozen rookies in the starting lineup, 99% of us would’ve taken that. Yes, 5-3 was tantalizing, which makes this week disappointing, but let’s hope that the right adjustments are made during the byes.
I said last week that it wouldn’t shock me if the Jets lost to the Browns and then beat either the Bears or Pats — I still hold to that.
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Chase says:
The Baker call was horrendous. I seriously hope that those Refs get reprimanded for their piss poor officiating. But, we should remember that the TD would have only sent the game to OT. With our crapfest of a Defense, we could have lost the game anyway if we didn’t get the coin flip.
Still, this loss really stings. Let’s just hope that we get a few calls headed our way in the future that’ll help us steal a W to make up for it.
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Quote from Newsday:
“The initial call was Baker was out of bounds, but the officials quickly huddled to confer.
“I heard one [official] saying it was a forceout and the other, coming from the side, saying it was not a forceout,” Baker said. “They commented back and forth and said that it was not. That’s part of the game.”
Carey said the forceout part of the play is not reviewable. The Jets were not able to ask for a review in the final two minutes, and any decision to take another look would have had to come from the replay booth.
“Whether he caught the ball inbounds or out is [reviewable], but there was clearly no body part that landed in bounds,” Carey said. “There was nothing to review.”
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andrew says:
what a catch!! that was a touchdown and im not bias towards other teams i call them like i see them..i dont let myself as a fan blind me..
it was a TD but lets move on, whats done is done..they looked pretty bad on defense until about halfway through the third quarter and pennington had a bad game..
i know iv said this before but our run defense is killing us
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Chris says:
I hate refs… but once again they should never have had to drive that late in a game to tie, not even to win, against the Browns. Also I agree Chad looked terrible, however the O line did not step up in this game either. There was pressure on almost every pass play. That McCarein’s INT wasn’t Chad’s fault, he was hit from behind as he threw the ball, that’s why it was a lame duck. Did anyone else notice that he over threw guys 3 times yesterday, haven’t seen that in, well, ever, so I think his arm is ok.
As for the B. Smith, he should go to the pro bowl for gunner on special teams, he’s amazing. However i never want to see that option play again, the only thing i can hope is that these B.Smith QB runs are just a set up for a pass play in a later week.
Overall I’m pretty upset this one got away because of a bad ref calls, I think 9-7 is still realistic but 10-6 will be hard, we need to take at least one, probably two against Pats, Bears and Vikings. -
prince says:
To get a few things off my chest, not that most haven’t been said already:
1) The play calling on the 3-2 was stupid. The offense was clicking, the running game was more than adequate. 3-13 teams need to be cute to get first downs on 3rd and 2. Teams with playoff aspirations should line up their best offense and PUSH the defense back, or at least run a high-probability play action pass. Brad Smith, I love you, but that was just stupid.
2) I found the refereeing questionable prior to the Baker TD catch. I can’t fault the ref’s for not overturning the punt, but there were some clear pass-interference plays that could have gone our way. The no-TD call on the pass to Baker was disgusting, but should have never been necessary, but they got it wrong anyway.
3) Give credit to Crennel. He is still a very good defensive mind in the game, and his style of defense is very good at disrupting a QB. That said, Chad stunk. He sailed dangerous passes over the heads and hands of open receivers and looked lost. R in CT’s point about his shoulder crossed my mind on more than one occasion. My theory — he’s not hurt, but perhaps his surgically repaired shoulder has gotten a little tired?
4) There’s no doubt in my mind that this would be a MUCH improved defensive team if we had a true 3-4 NT, and this is easily our biggest priority in the off-season. However, the biggest difference between the first three quarters and the last quarter in terms of the defense was a willingness to be aggressive in attacking the QB. The chances of making this season meaningful took a major step backwards yesterday with this loss. Mangini needs to watch the film and sit Sutton down and say, “time to swing for the fences.” Its put up or shut up time. Had we been beat on an 80 yard TD in the second quarter because we put a lot of bodies in Frye’s face and just narrowly missed him, than to watch him systematically pick us apart with short runs and short passes. It just might have rattled him enough down the last two quarters to have made a difference. Robertson didn’t play all that badly when the defense as a whole was more aggressive.
5) Playoffs? Don’t talk about playoffs. Are you kidding me? Playoffs? I’m just hoping we can win a game, another game.
4 and 4, with NE and CHI on tap feels an awful lot like 4 and 6, with a bye week to suffer through to boot. Which is a shame. Think of the possibilities had we one this game:
New England plays at Minnesota tonight in a game they could quite possible lose. Then, New England gets Chicago at home while our boys sit on their new overstuffed couch in the clubhouse and watch. Just imagine going up to New England at 5-3 after New England blows two in a row. That’s NFL drama, David versus Goliath, Moneymaker with a shot to take down Phil Helmuth, Muhammed Ali’s daughter with a shot to take down Mike Tyson (wait, who’s the underdog in that fight?) Now, what do we have? A chance to play ourselves out of a top-15 draft pick in ’07 against the weakest second half schedule in football. Poop. -
jetfan20 says:
Where do I start? Jets get the ball and hold it for 8 minutes and settle for a field goal (felt like a turnover) then we kick the ball out of bounds. Browns move the ball and tie it. THen after moving the ball fairly easily we decide that we need Brad smith to get the first down. IF you are a serious “playoff team” Line up get the first down and score!!!
Our defense is terrible!!!!!! we could not stop the run. What happened to VILMA? OUr LB’s do not fill those gaps. We finally blitz a lillte and stopped then in the second half. Could pennington float the ball some more. Cleveland was shorst on DB’s could we spread the field a little. Very questionable play calling. Maybe we should of gotten Baker involved earlier?
Reailty has to set in we are not that good. We need to figure out what defense will work and will have to draft that running back for our offense,
What game do we bring the Rookie QB in?
Thanks needed to get that of my chest!!!!!
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SackDance99 says:
Just to clear up the analog/HD issue. CBS only broadcasts about 6 games a week in HD. This week the Jets at Browns didn’t make the cut. Fox broadcasts more games in HD, but they too perform HD triage.
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I’ve posted before that this defense has to create an identity and I think it should be as a blitzing 3-4. Run blitzes, pass blitzes, all-out red dog blitzes, etc. Without blitzing or the threat of blitzing, the opposing team’s OL just dictates the pace of the game. When Chad is on, that’s okay because the scoreboard and game clock usually have as much of an impact on what an offense does as does a good defense. But, when Chad and the offense are off, the Jets need to play the field position game and a team can only do that if it stops the run on 1st and/or 2nd down. The downside of a blitz is that a smart QB with the right weapons can check off and beat the blitz. Well, guess what, the only offense that we play from here on out that would possibly be a mistake to blitz is Green Bay because Favre has the weapons and arm to beat the blitz. Brady? His receiving corps is a mess. Brad Johnson? The Vikes’ receiving corps is a mess. The other QB’s are either inexperienced (Grossman) or bad (Rosenfels/Carr, Harrington) or both (Walter, probably the worst starting QB in the NFL). Since nearly all of these teams want to establish the run, how about having 3 or 4 LB’s in the box on 1st and 2nd down? Then, if there’s an obvious check off, have them drop back…create confusion…try to impose the defense’s will on the offense. What does this defense have to lose?
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Yobosan says:
The Jets are running a more sophisticated offense this year than they have in the past. It includes shotgun snaps,no-huddles, “sugar huddles”, formation shifts, players in unusual positions, even bizarre formations like the tackles both split out wide. Pennington gets the team to the line with plenty of time to audible, and he seems to check off on every other play. Yet the defense looks primitive in comparison. Blitzes mostly come from safeties and corners, and they come far too rarely. Vilma is a ghost of his former self. I’m not sure if this is due to poor NT play, or the 3-4 alignment, but even his tackling skills have suffered. Obviously the Jets can’t stop the run, why not fill the box with linebackers, and get rid of those gaps or “bubbles” which invariably form running lanes. Time for Mangini to apply his offensive flexibilty to his defense. Time for a trip to the woodshed for Bob Sutton.
On another topic, many penalties are “judgement plays.” What is the problem with allowing any play to be challenged, since there is a penalty for an unsuccessful challenge and a limit of 2 per game? Why not fit the refs with portable screens attached to the cameras? The tempo of the game is already severely impacted by TV, what danger is there of erring on the side of complete accuracy? And why can’t the NFL or the networks pay for HD, for heaven’s sake? Any replay in HD is more informative than regular analog crap. Why are some games more important than others, accuracy-wise? Did you see that super-slow-mo camera used in the World Series? You could see every seam on the baseball. Suppose that technology was applied to the NFL and available directly to the refs, right on the field? I guess we can’t trust them to use the information judiciously enough. I guess they would have to huddle up on every play and gum up the game. If that’s what worries you, get better refs! -
sjfalcon2001 says:
I agree with a good deal of what you are saying, but I have to disagree with your characterization of the NE offense. Brady will be able to dink and dunk the entire game if we stack the box like that. Yes, the receivers are not that good, but Dillon, Maroney and Faulk can all catch the ball, Watson is a decent pass catching tight end, and Brown can still play. Brady can pick us apart with the short screen or slant pattern. Brady can elude the rush and he is good at checking off. I would switch to a 4-3 against the pats and focus on the run.
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I don’t understand why they don’t have cameras in the pylons. Especially the goal line. If they can put them in the bases for the World Series, and if they can have that stupid overhead camera, why can’t they have cameras on the lines? Even though it is a judgment call, force outs should be reviewable. I haven’t seen good officiating all year. I have watched several games this year and seen some terrible calls. Note to the new commish: HIRE FULL TIME REFS!!! Note to the FBI: investigate the NFL officials to make sure they are not working with bookies. I’d hate to think this is the case, but I really have to question it after what I have seen this year.
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I agree that Brady can pick a team apart, but choose your poison. The Vikes rarely blitzed Brady, who had all day to pass and, with that time, went to deep WR and TE patterns. The “no blitz” approach resulted in @ 400 yards and 4 TD’s. Getting a QB uncomfortable and unable to hit the long strike with blitzing is better than watching him sit back there and start hitting 20-30 yard seam patterns. In any event, I think that the Jets need to blitz to paper over the fact that their LB’s do not fill holes well in the running game and the DL is made up of 1-gappers who can’t prevent the OL from getting to the LBs. And, the 3-4 is not made for rushing the passer unless you blitz. Sutton/Mangini blitz, baby, blitz!
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KD Bart says:
Anyone else feel that Mangini made a mistake after the Baker non TD by calling a timeout to give the refs more time to think about it. If the play was non reviewable, giving them more to time to think about it wasn’t going to change that fact. Instead of having 2 timeouts with 59 seconds left, the Jets only had one timeout left. This allowed the Browns to run out the clock. If you has 2 timeouts left, you would had forced the Browns to punt from inside their own 20 with about 10 seconds left. You would have given yourself a longshot chance to still tie it up via either a blocked punt, a return for a TD or a hail mary pass from mid field on one last play. Calling that second timeout cost you that chance.
I said it before and I’ll say it again…
We watched the video tape, Eric lived with Romeo for crying out loud. THEY WERE WHO WE THOUGH THEY WERE!!! [Slams fist on desk] You wanna crown their asses? CROWN ‘EM, BUT THEY WERE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE.