“I need to play better.”
Those were the succinct words of Zach Wilson, who threw for 355 yards and two touchdowns but also tossed three interceptions in the Jets’ 22-17 loss to the Patriots Sunday, Gang Green’s 13th straight defeat at the hands of Bill Belichick.
The Jets entered the game riding high, 5-2 after a win in Denver last week, but a trend that started back in 2016 continued – the Jets just not being able to overcome Belichick and the Pats, with two of Wilson’s three picks coming in a dismal second half that saw the Jets have three turnovers, a missed field goal, and two three-and-outs on their first six possessions.
“We have to do better with the ball. This is a team that feasts on mistakes, and if you’re off by just a hair, they’re going to be all over it,” head coach Robert Saleh said of the second half.
Wilson’s first pick, which came on a third down with less than a minute left in the second quarter, led to a Pats field goal at the gun that made it 10-6 at the half – and while it seemed innocuous and inopportune at the time, it actually turned the tide of the game.
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“He has to play better, and we have to find ways to help him,” Saleh said of Wilson. “We still go in the locker room up 10-6, and you’ve got to be able to bounce back and move on.”
The Patriots scored on the opening possession of the second half, and the Jets then held them to two field goals after a missed FG and a three-and-out with a big punt return…but then, with the score 19-10 late in the third, Devin McCourty picked off Wilson at the Jets’ 40 on the first play of a drive.
"I don't let that stuff bother me, we're still moving the ball. I had some bonehead plays. On the second interception, I meant to throw that ball away, and they closed on me faster and I just missed inside. I didn’t mean to put the ball there, I just have to sail it,” Wilson said.
The Jets’ defense held the Pats to a three-and-out, but on their next drive, McCourty again picked Wilson off, snatching a deep shot inside the Pats’ 30 and returning it all the way back to the Jets’ 37.
"After that play, I felt sick coming off the field," Wilson said. "I can't do that, put my defense in a bad situation. But you know all day, I didn't feel like I let that stuff bother me."
The Pats got another field goal and it was all over but the shouting, as the Jets’ next drive ended in a turnover on downs – failing to convert fourth-and-five from the Pats’ 30 with just under nine minutes left – and by the time they cut the Pats’ lead to 22-17, they had less than two minutes and no timeouts left and needed another miracle (or recovered onside kick) to have a chance.
Neither came, and now, after two distinctly different games for Wilson in back-to-back weeks with the opposite results you might expect based on lines, Gang Green is back to the drawing board with all their goodwill of the last few weeks once again vanquished by their nemeses from up I-95.
"We just got to rally around him, and figure out how to make it not necessarily simpler, but just help him to continue to progress and evolve. He's still a young man," Saleh said of Wilson. "Playing quarterback in this league is not easy, and we collectively have to do better for him, and he has to do the simple stuff, not put too much pressure on himself to do more than you need to.”
“You can’t let those pile up; the bad ones were the second and third,” Wilson added of his picks. “I need to be able to keep doing what I did the last four weeks when something is not there. We’ll watch the film and learn, and get better.”
He’ll get that chance again next Sunday at MetLife Stadium against a Bills team that moved to 6-1 with a win over Green Bay on Sunday Night Football, and then it’s the Pats again, this time in Foxboro, on Nov. 20 after the bye.
“We'll continue to work with him. And we've got all faith in the world in him and we've just going to continue to find ways to do better,” Saleh said of Wilson. “The last three weeks we’ve played really good defenses, and you have to perform against really good defenses, but the self-inflicted wounds are what we need to clean up.”
Follow Lou DiPietro on Twitter: @LouDiPietroWFAN
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