Saucy Denver Nuggets from the Jets' loss on Sunday

Full disclosure: We haven't seen a single snap from Sunday's game yet. Godspeed You! Black Emperor were superb though.

In light of the disappointing outcome, rather than subject ourselves to watching it, let's take on the challenge of attempting to break the game down in more compelling fashion than everyone else who actually watched it.

Yes, we're Nuggeting Blind...

10 out of 10 for effort

For an offense that began the year with Breece Hall and Garrett Wilson literally accounting for all of their offense, the first half on Sunday was remarkable. And not in a good way.

In the opener, Hall and Wilson accounted for 89 first half yards as the Jets only managed 85 and literally nobody else other than the center and quarterback possessed the ball.

On Sunday, Hall had nine first half carries for three yards and Wilson had one catch for seven yards...which he fumbled away because apparently the third snap of the game is the new fourth snap of the game.

So that's 10 yards on 10 touches between them. And yet somehow the Jets were winning. "Thank goodness for Allen Lazard" being something that was on nobody's bingo card at the start of the season.

And thus a clever Saucy Nuggets sub-heading was born. (Hall did also catch a five-yard pass though, so they couldn't even do that right).

Omens from the Gloom

The Jets' 10-9 loss on Sunday wasn't the first in team history because another 10-9 loss marked the first game in Metlife Stadium history.

The Jets lost to the Ravens in their season opener 14 years ago, when for all the world it was looking like they might win 12-10. New York was driving with about a minute remaining when on fourth down Dustin Keller caught a pass but stepped out of bounds short of the marker. New York would only have needed about 20 more yards to be in range for a potential game winning field goal.

Keller stepped out on the 40-yard line...the exact same yard line from where Greg Zuerlein missed a potential kick that would have given the Jets a 12-10 win yesterday.

The 2010 Jets overcame this though, and ended up going 11-5 before ultimately almost but not quite reaching the Super Bowl when they lost to the Steelers in the AFC title game.

The omens don't stop there though. This isn't the first game Aaron Rodgers has had at Metlife where his team's offensive output was just nine points. Later that same season, that's all his team managed against the Jets. On this occasion, however, Rodgers walked away with a 9-0 win. Sunday was not quite the same experience for him.

For Rodgers this is an education in the difference between being a Jet and playing against the Jets, but in terms of omens, it's another good one because later in that 2010 season, the Packers went all the way to the Super Bowl and he won a championship and an MVP.

Stuck in the Hallway

Speaking of that Steelers-Jets AFC title game, the abiding memory for many Jets fans from that game was a late-game sequence where the Jets failed to punch in a touchdown, derailing their comeback. There were shades of that yesterday when New York had to settle for a field goal despite having 1st-and-goal at the 1-yard line.

The Jets gave the ball to Hall twice but he was stuffed for no gain each time. Then they tried a pass but it was incomplete. Finally, John Simpson false started and they gave up on trying to punch it in on fourth down.

It's interesting that Rodgers is headed to London next week, because the Jets' failure to punch that one in is somewhat reminiscent of his trip to London in 2022.

In that game, which was Rodgers' first in London because the Packers were the last of the 32 NFL teams to play there, the Packers were down five but drove right down inside the 10 in the closing stages. However, on 3rd-and-short they opted to pass instead of run and it was batted down and then on fourth down they again opted to pass and it was batted down again.

You can't blame Nate Hackett for the playcalling, though, because he wasn't there. At the time he was the head coach for, of course, the Denver Broncos. Look how seamlessly this all ties together. What an article.

Rodgers will obviously be looking to exorcise some demons from that previous London game on Sunday, but if they get in the same situation, is giving the ball to Hall a good idea?

It was well documented that Hall didn't have a single carry inside the five yard line until Christmas Eve last season, when he scored on a 2-yard run against the Commanders. However, this was usually cited as a measure of the Jets' offensive futility and/or how terrible their play selection was, especially in the red zone.

Hall's 100 percent success rate from inside the five in 2023 is obviously misleading. (He did actually have another carry from inside the five against the Raiders but this one was wiped out by a CJ Uzomah holding penalty that negated a would-be touchdown).

Then again, if you look at Hall's entire career, he's barely been used in these situations.

2022 against the Steelers he was stopped once and then later scored the game winning touchdown, although this needed a replay review to be confirmed because it barely broke the plane before he fumbled it away
A few games later against the Packers, Hall was stuffed for a three-yard loss on both his carries inside the five.
As noted he scored from the three against the Raiders last year but that didn't count.
Then he scored against the Commanders. This wasn't a power run up the gut, though, he bounced outside and barely stretched out to tap the nose of the ball on the pylon, again needing replay to confirm.
This year he got it on a two-point conversion against the 49ers but was stuffed.
He then scored against New England, although he was initially ruled down and replay had to overturn this.
Finally, on Sunday, he had two runs stopped for no gain.

So, that's actually it. And even on his successes, he barely broke the plane. At no point did he power across the goal line in decisive fashion. Could it be that he's just not much of a short yardage back?

In 2021 and 2022, the Jets often gave Ace Carter the ball instead of Hall, even though Hall has over 15 pounds on him. But maybe they felt - and the numbers seem to back this up - that Carter had a better knack for finding the end zone. If that was the case it seems strange that they would now give these short yardage carries to Hall over the battering ram that is Braelon Allen (who, by the way, rushed for two yards on an important 3rd-and-1 later on).

Hall had been struggling to get anything done all day, as mentioned above, but the Jets went to him anyway. After all, they only needed a yard. Again, this was reminiscent of that Steelers game, in which the fact that the Steelers had an historically good run defense played into their decision making at the goal line.

We'll look into what went wrong here on those plays and in the running game in general in this week's 3-on-O. Did Olu Fashanu prove to be a major downgrade compared to Morgan Moses, perhaps? Or did his inclusion undo the chemistry the unit had built so far?

The required change seems obvious, though, and it's something we all thought was inevitable back in April. Allen should be the short yardage back.

Sutton dressed as Lamb

And finally, a word about the grand larceny pulled off by New York Nix and his band of Bronco Busters.

The Broncos may have held the Jets under 250 yards but they did so while their offense put forward an inept performance that saw then run only three plays that gained more than five yards in the first half.

In fact, Denver only managed three plays that gained positive yardage at all in the first quarter and nine in the first half. So you could accurately state that an incomplete pass was their fourth most successful first quarter play and would have cracked the top-10 for most successful first half plays.

Let's talk about the Bo Nix to Courtland Sutton connection. Nix threw Sutton's way nine times, completing three. Not great. But those three catches accounted for 60 yards and the decisive touchdown.

Given than Nix ended the game with 60 passing yards and one touchdown we can surmise that his other 16 pass attempts netted zero yards.

We've already established that incomplete passes were among the most successful plays for Denver on Sunday, but those 16 passes actually included nine completions.

Completions: Nine. Yards: None. Nine...none. There's that omen again: 9-0.

We'll bring ourselves to actually watch the game at some point, so your usual programming with resume later with AFR and the special teams review...