Sunday’s loss to the Patriots probably felt very familiar for the Jets in many ways. In one precise way, it should have felt familiar for New York quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
The Jets’ season is dangerously close to circling the drain after a shocking last-minute loss to the woeful Patriots. New York will need a miracle to save its campaign after falling to 2-6 with seemingly no levers left to pull.
That’s not to say the Jets didn’t have their chance to win Sunday at Gillette Stadium, though. The Jets didn’t turn the ball over and played decent defense against New England. As ESPN’s Rich Cimini pointed out, the circumstances under which New York lost were very, very rare.
“This is crazy,” Cimini tweeted after the game. “(The Jets) had 0 turnovers, held the Patriots to 247 yards — and still lost. They’re the first team to lose a game in which they did not turn the ball over and held their opponent under 250 yards since Week 3 of 2012.”
Kind of wild, right? It gets crazier. The last team to suffer the same fate? That would be the Green Bay Packers with Rodgers under center. The Packers lost 14-12 to the Seattle Seahawks on “Monday Night Football” in Week 3, the game better known for ending on the infamous “Fail Mary” play with the NFL’s replacement referees.
That means Rodgers has been the quarterback for the two teams to suffer such a hard-to-comprehend loss in the last 12 years. Granted, it’s not all Rodgers’ fault — defense and special teams were a problem Sunday, and that 2012 game was ref robbery — but it also feels slightly on-brand given his penchant for coming up short relative to his talent.
If it makes Rodgers feel any better, ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky followed up on the original stat Monday. Orlovsky tweeted a stat that was also shared on “Get Up” that further drilled into the unbelievable loss. According to ESPN, when you also consider the Jets scored 20-plus points, they are the first team ever to score 20 points, commit no turnovers and allow fewer than 250 yards — and lose. The record of teams who had done so in the past: 750-0.
History!
