MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Aaron Glenn danced in last week’s loss. This week, he sang.
It wasn’t a pretty tune, but one that needed to be belted out. So as the Jets sat in their moribund locker room following Monday night’s 27-21 loss to the Dolphins at Hard Rock Stadium, the head coach started belting one out. The exact words were not audible from the adjacent room but the volume and passion behind his postgame speech were difficult to misinterpret.
As cornerback Sauce Gardner said, in paraphrasing Glenn’s message: “We’re 0-4, and it’s not OK.”
In a game that was supposed to be the best opportunity for the Jets to notch their first win of the season and of this coaching staff’s tenure, playing against another winless and sometimes hapless opponent, the Dolphins, the Jets blew it.
On a field where they came out hellbent on establishing their sought-after identity of a physical, disciplined, ground-and-pound offense, they instead reverted to their old sloppy selves.
With a chance to show that their defense can stand up to an opponent and put all those tackling drills in training camp to good use, the Jets let the Dolphins players literally slip through their fingers.
Wanting to demonstrate their discipline, they committed 13 penalties for 101 yards.
Even when something good seemed to happen for the Jets — such as Garrett Wilson appearing to catch an 18-yard touchdown pass in the end zone on the final play of the third quarter — it was negated by an offensive pass interference penalty. The Jets had to settle for a field goal early in the fourth.
“Very disappointing, I’m very disappointed,” Glenn said to reporters shortly after his diatribe when he was much more composed. “There is no way you can win any game with 13 penalties and three turnovers. It just can’t happen … Before you can win games, you have to learn how not to lose games and we have to do a better job in that case. And we will.”
Glenn continues to remain positive in his public comments. After this loss, he said several times that he is “not losing hope in our guys,” pointed out that three of the four losses have been one-score games, and said the Jets are “just not doing the things we need to do to finish games.”
He even smiled a bit when asked about the immense challenge of turning the Jets around and called it “intriguing.”
But behind those closed doors, it is becoming obvious that Glenn is growing more and more frustrated by the way the team continues to find ways to lose games.
He’s not alone, either.
“I’m going to keep saying it: I don’t want to lose,” said Gardner, who blamed himself for allowing the opening touchdown on a pass to tight end Darren Waller. “This is probably the craziest I ever felt about losing … We have to fix it. I know I’ve been saying it every single week but it just can’t happen. It can’t happen.”
The list of transgressions on Monday was long and spared no corner of the roster. It began with Braelon Allen’s fumble at the goal line as he attempted to dive into the end zone for a touchdown to cap an otherwise dominant 12-play, 81-yard opening drive. Allen never got a chance to make up for it; he hurt his knee returning a kickoff early in the second quarter and left the game with what appeared to be a serious injury.
The Jets’ second possession ended in a fumble, too, as quarterback Justin Fields attempted to dodge pressure on fourth-and-5 from the Miami 36 but coughed it up.
Those were just the starter courses in this meal of maddening mistakes. The Jets opened the second half with Isaiah Williams fumbling the kickoff and setting the Dolphins up for Waller’s second touchdown. Williams would later fair catch a punt at his own 3 for some ill-advised reason, too. Oof.
The Jets managed to grab a brief sliver of hope when Fields, in his first game back from missing one with a concussion, ran for a dynamic 43-yard touchdown that made it 17-10 midway through the third. Was that the play that would turn their fate? Nope.
The Dolphins answered with a drive that was helped along by a personal foul on Kiko Mauigoa who hit Tua Tagovailoa in the head as he slid short of a first down on a third-down run. It was then capped on a 9-yard touchdown run by De’Von Achane on which Tony Adams whiffed on the tackle while Jamien Sherwood and Isaiah Oliver overran the play.
There were a few highlights. Fields’ long run was glorious. Garrett made a dazzling catch on a 23-yard touchdown with 1:49 left in the fourth that, along with a two-point conversion keeper by Fields, made it a six-point game. And Nick Folk connected on a career-best 58-yard field goal at the end of the first half, along with a 50-yarder in the fourth. Not bad for a 40-year-old. Those glimpses are far too few, though.
Glenn will get that first victory one day. He’ll be able to strut off the field and hug his guys and be presented with the football in a joyous locker room. He may even eventually turn this franchise around into the winners he envisions.
But all of that seemed very far away on Monday night.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday’s Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
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