EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Aaron Rodgers and the New York Jets had the ball with less than a minute left and one last chance to pull out what would’ve been a wild comeback victory.
Instead, it all slipped away. Much like their season.
“There’s no more time for making excuses,” running back Breece Hall said. “You’ve got to win football games at the end of the day.”
Rodgers was sacked twice on New York’s final drive and the Jets couldn’t get in position for a potential winning score in a 28-27 loss to the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday.
“Angry, frustrated, not in a good place, from that standpoint,” interim coach Jeff Ulbrich said of the team’s mindset after the Jets (3-8) lost for the seventh time in eight games. “Obviously, guys are working their butts off and, obviously, there’s an element that something’s missing.”
Rodgers and the Jets entered this season with Super Bowl aspirations. Now, it’s highly likely they’ll extend the team’s playoff drought to 14 consecutive years, the NFL’s longest active skid.
Ulbrich dropped to 1-5 since replacing the fired Robert Saleh on Oct. 8, and the Jets will be in the market for a head coach. General manager Joe Douglas’ future is uncertain since his contract expires after the season.
And Rodgers, who turns 41 on Dec. 6, has said he thinks he’ll want to continue playing next year. But even that is no sure thing as he tries to stay motivated through all the losing - something he’s not used to.
“I’m in my 20th year,” said Rodgers, who passed Dan Marino for eighth place on the NFL’s career list for yards passing. “I’ve figured out a way to do this for a long time, so you’ve just got to remember why you fell in love with this game. This will definitely be a week for us to clear all of our heads and come back and stick together.”
Instead of going into their bye-week break with a win and a sliver of optimism, the Jets have extra time to stew.
“What we say is, don’t point the fingers,” cornerback Sauce Gardner said. “The outside world is going to do that anyway, no matter what’s going on.”
Rodgers was 22 of 29 for 184 yards with two touchdown passes and Hall had a TD catch and ran for a score, but the offense again started slowly - as it has so often this season. New York didn’t get a first down until its sixth possession, when it got two and scored a touchdown. And then the Jets scored again.
But they couldn’t keep it going consistently.
Rodgers also thought the Jets would go for a 2-point conversion rather than an extra point - which gave New York a 24-16 lead - after his 11-yard TD pass to Kenny Yeboah early in the fourth quarter.
“The reason I was thinking was we had had a conversation on the sideline about it and I was under the impression that the decision was before the drive we were going to go for 2,” he said. “Now, something changed in the meantime.”
Still, the Jets led 27-22 with 2:41 remaining after Anders Carlson - New York’s fourth kicker in as many games - kicked a 35-yard field goal. That came after Ulbrich passed on the Jets going for it on fourth-and-2.
“Brick felt good about Anders kicking it and the defense stopping it,” Rodgers said when asked if he would’ve like to have tried to convert on fourth down. “But yeah, of course. I felt like we needed to get to 30 just to be in the game. Now, obviously, the way we played, we still needed to get to 30 to win.
“But yeah, if we were a great team, we would have scored seven (points) there.”
Anthony Richardson then marched the Colts down the field and ran 4 yards for the go-ahead score with 46 seconds left. After Jonathan Taylor was stuffed on the 2-point try, Rodgers and the Jets had a chance to try to get Carlson in position for a potential winning field goal.
But they had no timeouts left and things started ominously as Rodgers was sacked by Kwity Paye and fumbled on the first play. Tyler Conklin recovered for the Jets, but time was running out.
“Yeah, not a very good play,” Rodgers said, adding he was trying to throw an incompletion.
After Hall had an 11-yard catch and a delay-of-game penalty was called on the Colts’ E.J. Speed, Rodgers was sacked again by Paye as the time ticked off the clock - sealing another miserable loss for the Jets.
“It’s been tough,” wide receiver Garrett Wilson said. “I ain’t going to fake it.”
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