No direction: QB spot more bleak as Jets season continues to tailspin

After another nightmarish showing, Jets head coach Rex Ryan stood at the podium and said, “one thing we know - it can’t get a whole hell of a lot worse.”

Should we really be so sure of that?

It didn’t seem like it could get much worse for this Jets team than the 31-0 stinker in San Diego. Then Sunday happened.

Buffalo came into MetLife Stadium and before even a quarter had passed, the Bills were up 3-0 in turnover margin. By the end of the day, that differential ballooned to six.

It didn’t matter who was under center for the now 1-7 Jets. Geno Smith was putrid as he opened the floodgates with three interceptions on eight passes. He completed only two of his attempts to players in green and white.

Backup Mike Vick was better, but that’s not saying much. He too turned the ball over three times, as he completed 18 of his 36 passes for 153 yards, and picked up 69 yards on the ground.

Ryan said after the game that he had no clue who the starter would be next Sunday in Kansas City. That’s because neither of the candidates have done anything to merit the call to action.

Vick admitted he was unprepared when called to duty the last time Smith was pulled due to his struggles against the Chargers. In his second opportunity, Vick didn’t exactly light the world on fire.

Smith, in his second year, is not improving. He continues to be a roller coaster, going from serviceable to not salvageable in a week’s time. In nearly defeating the New England Patriots on the road in a prime-time game last week, Smith didn’t once turn the ball over. The Jets still struggled mightily to hit pay dirt in the red zone but the mistakes were limited and a win was within reach.

Then came Sunday.

It took little more than a half hour in real time for Smith’s day to turn into a trainwreck.

“I think the young man’s got the ability. I think it’s just a matter of time,” Ryan said in his postgame comments about Smith.

But how much time will the Jets give Smith, a second-round pick who hasn’t found his footing? Volatile play is a theme that has followed Smith back to his college days. After a soaring start to his senior season at West Virginia (5-0 record, 24 TD, 0 INT), Smith regressed some (11 TD, 5 INT) and his team lost five straight.

Those ups and downs have been the standard for Smith in his season and a half in New York, too. In his rookie season, Smith would go from flashing signs of potential one week (i.e. Week 5, a Monday night comeback victory on the road against the Falcons) to a problematic performance the next (a two-interception, struggle of a day in a Week 6 home loss to Pittsburgh).

Smith was benched in the middle of games three times last season - once in October, once in November and once in December.

He’s already been pulled twice in the eight games of this one.

Having made 23 NFL starts in his career, Smith has been bad enough to be yanked five times. That’s over 20 percent.

Alarming doesn’t begin to describe that trend.

Yet, Ryan still believes in the young quarterback. Maybe Smith has the talent but unless he can put it together consistently, he isn’t going to make it with this team or in this league. It’s becoming more and more obvious with each benching that Smith is not the Jets quarterback of the future.

Ryan may think it’s just a matter of time but both his and Smith’s are running thin.

No Folk hero this time: Close games not going 2014 Jets' way

Last year in the Jets' first meeting of the season against New England, Nick Folk kicked a game-winning field goal in overtime.

That, of course, came with some luck (and controversy) after Chris Jones of the Patriots was called for unsportsmanlike conduct on Folk's first attempt (from 56 yards), which was a miss. Move the ball up 15 yards and the Jets celebrated a W.

Thursday night in the 2014 Jets' first duel with the Patriots, Folk again had an opportunity to lift the Jets to victory with a long kick. Jones was again involved. This time, though, there was no penalty. Folk's 58-yard attempt didn't travel more than a few yards, as Jones, ironically enough, was the one to knock the ball down.

What a difference a year makes.

So, what is that difference, at least through seven games?

The 2013 Jets pulled out close games. The 2014 incarnation hasn't.

At their Week 10 bye last season, the Jets were 5-4. All five of those victories came by a touchdown or less.

This year, it's the exact opposite.

Four of the Jets six losses have come by one possession or less. A 14-point loss to Denver last Sunday only became that lengthy because of a pick-six in a do-or-die drive for Geno Smith and the Jets offense.

There's no denying 1-6 is an ugly, ugly record. But these Jets aren't quite as bad as that record may look. Here's the rundown of the soul-crushers:

- Lost at Green Bay in a game in which a timeout snafu cost them a game-tying, fourth quarter touchdown
- After falling into a 14-point deficit on Monday night against Chicago, came back and got into the Bears' red zone in the final two minutes with a chance to tie the game on a touchdown, then two-point conversion but could not hit paydirt
- Somehow managed to stay in a game in which Detroit thoroughly outplayed them but went three-and-out on a potential game-tying drive that began with 4:36 left in the fourth, then never got the ball back
- Somehow managed to stay in a game in which Denver outplayed them most of the way but, down a touchdown, went three-and-out on a drive beginning with 6:07 to play and culminated it with a Smith pick-six on a last gasp chance that began at their own 5 in the final 2:30
- Thursday's New England affair, in which they more than doubled the Patriots' time of possession and didn't turn the ball over but could muster only a field goal four times in Patriots territory (twice in the red zone)

Outside of the 31- 0 demolition suffered in San Diego, this team has been competitive in every game - with opponents whom are no slouches. The combined record of the teams who have defeated the Jets is 25-11.

While 1-6 looks really bad, you have to ask yourself: how much different really are these Jets than last year's version?

It was relatively agreed upon that Rex Ryan overachieved by taking that bunch to an 8-8 record. With a talent pool that is better in some places (Eric Decker at receiver) and worse in others (the secondary), Ryan's team is on pace for a much worse finish this time around.

But take a look at how the Jets won last year and how they've lost last year - it's not all that different.

Close games went the Jets way in 2013 - and they overachieved. 

Winning close games has proved impossible thus far in 2014 - and the Jets are in the AFC East cellar.

Talent-wise, plenty still needs to be done. If a penchant for tight wins and a surprisingly good final record fooled anyone out of that belief, they were sorely mistaken. Seven weeks of the 2014 season have proved that.

Rex Ryan can’t afford many more 'ass whippings'

Jets head coach Rex Ryan rarely holds back his emotions, win or lose.

Ryan’s Jets didn’t just lose to the Chargers this week - they were demoralized in every aspect of the game, from an offense that couldn’t get out of its own way to a defense that couldn’t stop a thing on third down.

It was a mess, which Ryan frankly acknowledged: “It's a complete ass-whipping and it was me that got his ass kicked. It's on me."

Candor is a plus but frankly, Ryan can’t afford many more of the beatdowns of the nature the Jets suffered in the fifth game of their season.

No team is immune to a day they don’t want to remember but for the Jets, it’s becoming a recurring script and Ryan’s seat is only getting hotter and hotter.

There was last year’s 49-9 stomping in Cincinnati, which Ryan followed up by saying: “We got our butts kicked and there’s no two ways about it. All phases of the game.”

Go back two years to a 2012 game at home when the San Francisco 49ers obliterated the Jets and Ryan said: “We got our ass kicked” and that the team needed to do some “soul searching.”

Ryan called the infamous 45-3 Monday night loss in New England in 2010, the “biggest butt whipping I’ve taken as a coach, in my career.” Ryan used the word “butt” six times in that postgame news conference, repeatedly stressing that Bill Belichick and the Patriots kicked the derrieres of Ryan and the Jets.

Some of these Ryan-led teams have gone on to make the playoffs despite such whoopings. But this one is 1-4 and looking in no shape to get hot.

With a new general manager, Ryan’s ass is on the line and, if the ship isn’t righted quickly this time, the next place it will be kicked is to the curb.