“I’ll look back at it, but with three timeouts, I feel like you can be aggressive with anything in bounds. I was just trying to save as many timeouts as possible; you can look back and say we probably should’ve used one – but when you have three timeouts, time isn’t an issue.”
That was Jets head coach Robert Saleh’s explanation for why Gang Green only used two of their three timeouts on the final drive against the Lions, both of them in the final 20 second of the game.
The Jets got the ball with 1:49 left at their own 25, and the drive ignominiously started with a sack and an incompletion. But, on third and 19, Zach Wilson threw a strike to Garrett Wilson for 22 yards and a first down…but instead of using the first of those three timeouts, the Jets hurried up the field, losing nearly a half-minute before the clock stopped on an incompletion to Braxton Berrios.
Wilson had been benched in part because of his lack of understanding of the fundamentals of the playbook, and in that case, a more clock-savvy quarterback might see that was the time to use one of the three.
Instead, well, he waited for someone else to do it for him?
“To be honest, so much is going on, I have no idea when timeouts are coming or not,” Wilson said after the game. “My job is to keep rolling until someone tells me the clock is stopped, keep going as quickly as possible until we can’t.”
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The incompletion to Berrios was a deep shot down the middle, which would’ve been great if it hit, and then probably used a timeout there – but it didn’t, and the sequence left a second-and-10 at the Jets’ 38…and on the next play, once again, Garrett Wilson was held in bounds on a 10-yard gain, and it took another 20 seconds off the clock before another deep incompletion to Berrios led to a stoppage with 24 seconds left.
Two big plays, but the Jets still had a good 20 yards to go to get into Greg Zuerlein’s field goal range – and given that they had all of 50 yards on the ground, the Lions knew the Jets were passing, even without Denzel Mims and Jeff Smith in the lineup.
“I’m sure we’ll watch the film tomorrow and see we could’ve handled it better, but, yeah,” was all Garrett Wilson could say.
Another sack finally forced the Jets to take a timeout, but by that point, it was third-and-18 at their 40, and one more incompletion set up the fourth-and-18 play to Garrett Wilson that gave the Jets one last chance, one second for a 58-yard field goal attempt.
That failed, and so did the Jets, and all that’s left is the three rules of doubt: would’ve, could’ve, and should’ve.
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“You go into the drive and know it’s a challenge, but we have 1:49 and three timeouts, and I feel like that’s more than enough time for us to go down and score,” Zach Wilson said. “I think there will be some of that two minutes I’ll want back, but I’ll watch that tape back and learn from that experience.”
And no, not a single Jet blames Greg Zuerlein for pushing a near 60-yarder wide, because they pinned it on themselves for not getting far enough.
“Z is a hell of a kicker but that’s not on him; we have to put him in a better situation,” the QB said. “We didn’t get it done.”
Maybe, just maybe, a savvier QB, head coach, or combo would’ve?
Follow Lou DiPietro on Twitter: @LouDiPietroWFAN
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