Transcript of MNF Recap: Jets and Aaron Rodgers Come Up Short AGAIN in Fourth Quarter

And now Wilson comes to the left side. Rodgers in the shotgun haul to his right on third and 16. Back to pass. Rodgers looking to load up, fires deep rainbow down the field, looking for Mike Williams, and it's intercepted.

Taren Johnson.

Welcome back. A humongous interception by the nickel corner.

Welcome back to Taren Johnson. Welcome back to Tarell Bernard. Welcome back to me. I'm back stateside. The Buffalo Bills are back in first place in the AFC East. That was Chris Brown, of course, on the Bills radio network. Bills get a win 23 to 20 on another entertaining primetime game Aaron Rodgers. Nick Shook has a chance for the third straight week to go win a game on a drive down just a few points in the final minutes. For the third straight week, he comes It's up short. Second straight week, it's an interception on a pass intended for Mike Williams. Thank you, nick, by the way, for keeping the home front warm and getting that Sunday night recap done just a night ago. Here you are, writing off a good game tonight.

Yeah, and I'll probably sleep better than Aaron Rodgers will right now because the man is clearly frustrated despite the fact that the change to Todd Downing, his play collar, did produce better results offensively. It ultimately ends up with the same final final result, which is a loss, and a loss in which he, like you said, targeted Mike Williams and got picked off to end their hopes and dreams. I mean, it's got to be a tough time for the Jets right now, but a big win for the Bills, not because it was pretty, because we're not going to lie here and say it was pretty for anybody. Statistically, it was pretty. Visually, not so much because of all the penalties, but a huge win for them after losing two straight to get back on the right side of things.

Yeah, the penalties were crazy. It finishes with, I believe, 11 penalties for both teams, the most penalty yards combined in any game this season. It could have been even much higher because there were multiple plays in the second half where there were offsetting penalties, where there was a long PI that got called back because there was an offensive line holding penalty, and then just matching holding. So the second half, you're right, was ugly. The first half wasn't. I mean, the Bills' offense played fantastic. But talking about that ending, I thought both quarterbacks played quite well in this game. Josh Allen, very efficient, making plays outside the pocket. Aaron Rodgers, I thought, probably had his best game as a Jets' quarterback. And considering he's thrown one shutdown and eight interceptions on the season, I actually think he's played reasonably well, but he's come up short in these big spots, and it does make you think about the differences between two quarterbacks. At one point, Aaron Rodgers was in the top five quarterbacks, right? And it's because he had so many different ways he could beat you. And you think about the ways this game ended with them being able to blitz and get to him before that play and a couple of times late, whereas Josh Allen, after that interception on third and five, fakes a pitch to the right, runs to the left, and finishes the game like one of the best running quarterbacks of all time, which he is, so he can beat you in so many different ways.

And to me, it was a small difference in this game, but there was a difference in quarterbacks in this game.

Yeah, a small difference, but a massive difference when it down to winning football. I mean, it's that simple. It's Josh Allen being able to extend plays. Throwing a pass in the run to Ray Davis for a pickup of 42 on a down, they absolutely needed. It was the fastest speed by a ball carrier on a pass completed at that distance in the next Gen stats era, I believe. I mean, that's what Josh Allen is capable of doing. And it's not that Aaron Rodgers played poorly because he didn't. He's getting the ball out quickly. He's making the proper reads and everything else. I feel bad for him because for a stretch there, Tyron Smith was serving him up on a platter to AJ Finesa for sacks and crushing hits, even ones that drew penalties. Still, they pile up on a guy like him. But yeah, Josh Allen, he's in the top three in the QB index for a reason. Aaron Rodgers is not for a reason.

There we go. That's simple. I shouldn't be the only one doing self-promotion on this show all the time. I guess everyone should check out QB Index week after week. Nick Shook killing it. And yeah, what is the top three right now? Must be Josh Allen, Lamar, and Joe Burrow?

Yeah, this past week, it Lamar, Joe Burrow, Josh Allen. Maybe Allen behind Mahomes. I think Allen was still ahead of Mahomes.

I might have Stroud right behind those.

Stroud was fifth. Yeah, he was right there.

Love it. You look at Roger's numbers. He takes five Cuby hits, three sacks, and yet he wasn't pressured that much. And so it's something that I've noticed throughout this season. He gets rid of the ball quickly for the most part. But when he does hold on to it, he tends to take a lot of hits. And the word is out, I think, in blitzing him, that the Bills are not a heavy blitz team. But when they did blitz tonight, he went one of four for eight yards and took three sacs. So it has been something, I think, that isn't shown in the numbers, that he is throwing the ball well, but that when you get pressure in his face, he's not reacting as well to it. Meanwhile, Josh Allen on third downs tonight was six of eight, two touch downs. He had the two rushing first downs, and he has no interceptions on the season, which is crazy. It's a little misleading. It's a little lucky. It was the ultimate Josh Allen moment in sequence tonight, right before halftime. He's running to the right outside the pocket inside the 10 with under a minute left in the second quarter, and he gets loose with the ball and fumbles it, and they happen to recover after it bounces around between the Bills and the Jets.

And on the very next play, he makes an awesome roll out to the left where he gets Doss and knocks for a breakdown that I thought was going to be such a big moment in this game, shook. But all it did was set up Aaron Rodgers for another magical Halle Mary moment. After this play that we're going to listen to, I was convinced the Jets are winning this game. You can't lose a game when Aaron Rodgers throws a Halle Mary, can you?

Aaron Rodgers in the shotgun, takes the snap and drops back again. A two-man rush, steps up in the pocket, has time. He's just going to heave the ball towards the end zone. Jets, a Halle Mary into the end zone. It's tapped around. Alan Mazard, the ball bounces out. He thought he had it for a Did he have it? It's a countdown.

It's a hale Mary, a countdown to Alan Lazard before halftime. W-a-xq, Bob with Susan. That felt like another moment where it's like, wow, Aaron Rodgers is really a jet. Again, he's hitting the Halle Mary, and that was the time, and the Bills end up blowing that 10-point lead, and the Jets have a moment where they actually think they take the lead, but it's called back by a Tyron Smith holding penalty. You mentioned what a bad night he had. But I thought, wow, okay, Hey, this is going to be the night, a little Rodgers badge in primetime. And again, he gets the chance with a three-point deficit late in the game, but it just didn't happen. But at least he gave us that.

Yeah, I mean, that was classic Rodgers. Everybody on Twitter immediately He was like, Hey, he did it again. Fourth time in his career, he's throwing a Hail Mary for a countdown, and that's great. And it felt like one of those momentum-swinging plays that basically led me to believe that we were going to see the exact same thing that happened between Jets and Bills last year, also in primetime, in which they walk it off with a Gibson punt return, TD. We never got that opportunity because instead, it ended in all too familiar fashion with that pick. But yeah, in that moment, that was great. What was also great, Greg, I don't know if a lot of people picked up on this, but I certainly did. We had a little bit of a fail Mary part, too, where we had one official saying, Incomplete, and the other one signaling, TD. I was like, Oh, please tell me, photographers are catching this. I thought that might be the only time, back when it happened in Seattle, that we'd ever see that. We got it for a moment there, even though they got the call right.

Okay, so we're going to connect a couple of different threads we've been talking about in this show. The officiating, which was questionable. Some of the ruffing, the passer calls, there was one on both sides were shaky, and there was just so many penalties. I'm so sick of the illegal formations. It is on pace right now to triple the amount of illegal formations. I believe tonight, we almost tied the amount of illegal formations in the entire 2023 season. So all these freaking penalties, and Aaron Rodgers was complaining about it, and he actually has a reference here back to when we had the replacement refs.

How old is it, tonight?

It seemed a little ridiculous. Yeah, some of them seemed really bad, including the rough in the Passer on me. That's not rough in the Passer. Might as well play Sarcasta Ball, if we're going to call those things. And I thought the one on Kinlan was not rough in the Passer either.

Do you know what Sarcasta Ball is without googling it? I have I was waiting for you to finish writing, so I've done the research.

Honestly, I'm drawing a blank, so enlighten me.

It's a South Park episode that they made about the replacement refs where they created another sport, so cast a ball. I do love it. It's in Roger's wheelhouse, age-wise, and certainly sense of humor, that he just throws that out there as if everyone knows it.

Good job there. I was in college back then, so I do recall my friends being very on top of it at that time.

It was a really interesting It's an interesting press conference. You'll probably see the photo of him just staring off the space, wondering about the meaning of life thing at the end of Monday Night Football. I was feeling that way, too. It's about 5:30 AM back in London, and then it's up to a couple hours before racing to the airport. So I'm a little fried right now. So I was thinking that way, too. But at the end of this game, he was asked about that Williams route, which felt typical that they can't get on the same page. And he all but threw Williams under the bus for not running the right route. Now, he didn't say he ran the wrong route, but he said that he's expecting him to run a certain way. I think he called it like... I forget the wording that he used. Ryan Clark explained it on ESPN. But essentially, he thinks he's going to go vertical, but he's not as outside. He sees him breaking one way before he throws it, and he almost had to adjust the throw midway. Williams has to come back for it. It was a bad throw.

I think Rodgers was not so subtly saying that it was a bad throw because he caught me off guard for not being where I expected him to be.

Yeah, and that speaks to their lack of rapport because the interception that he threw against the Vikings overseas was similar. It was that they just don't understand where each other wants each other to be at a certain time where he throws that pass, he gets picked off against the Vikings. That would have been a great back shoulder throw, but Mike Williams continues running downfield. And this time, Mike Williams is not quite running the same route that he wants, ends up in another interception, a spectacular interception, no less. It was definitely a great play, but a play that Mike Williams slips and falls trying to get back to the ball because they're not on the same page, which is just indicative of where the Jets offense has been. Even after the play collar changed, it's still where they are.

Yeah. You mentioned the play collar change. I do think there were more open receiver tonight. That the running game looked fantastic, especially in the first half. Brees Hall goes 18 for 113. At mid-third quarter, they had seven 20-plus yard plays. So this was an explosive offense. They put up almost 400 yards. I don't know if they got another 20-yard play after that. I don't think they did. Garrett Wilson had a nice night. Lazard's having a nice season in general. So it's not like they're that far away, but there's always just one thing that's going wrong. Tyron Smith, tonight, Joe Tippman had a big penalty in this game, and they just can't get it consistent enough. When they have a chance to take the lead, they get inside the five-yard line, you expect them to be able to punch it in instead of penalty, blows it there. So I don't think they're done yet. And the coach of the Jets actually agrees with me. Jeff Ulberg. Let's listen to him.

I think there's always a sense of urgency. There has to be. That's just the nature of this league. But at the same time, two and four is, we are by no means out of this thing. By no means. I know the character of that locker room. I know the way we will respond. I know that. I thought this week's process was right. I thought the way we were prepared was exceptional. And we got to start stacking these weeks of exceptional preparation. I promise you it'll start to pay off on Sundays.

They felt like they were closer this week, right, Greg? They felt, even with the coaching change and everything else, and that's a guy who I'd run a brick, threw a brick wall for, right? But they felt like they were closer than they'd been in the last few weeks, even if they didn't get the job done.

Yes. Well, offensively, they were much better. Now, he's calling the defense brick, is what Rodgers called them at his press conference, and he was gushing about what a good job brick has been doing. So that, I think, is somewhat telling. He's got the seal of approval from Aaron Rodgers. And defensively, they did not play well in the first half. Second half, they tightened up on the Bill Four possessions of the second half. They miss a field goal. Tyler Bass cost them four points in this game. Greg Zerline on the other side. It was very windy. Missed two kicks, doinked them both. You don't see that too much. And then punt, punt. Then that long field goal drive that ultimately was the game-winning drive. So the Jets defense wasn't great. Brick said it was not too much for him to call the plays. I think ultimately, you're right. They were closer on offense. It really felt like the play collar change was effective. We should give some love to the Bills' offense and Ray Davis. I love me some Ray Davis, just the way he runs. There's an aggression that sometimes running backs don't have after their rookie year or their second year.

Ray Davis has it right now. He just runs so hard, and you can't teach that.

I think diehard listeners of NFL Daily might recall me pointing out Ray Davis in the preseason as a guy to watch out for. He is a low center of gravity runner who's hard to bring down on first contact. He runs hard. He did that tonight. They had Their first scoring drive was a statement drive. Six of their nine plays are Ray Davis carries. He totals like 48 yards on that drive alone, marches them down the field. I'm sitting there watching just going, Yes, we're getting the Ray Davis game. That's before he even got involved in the passing game. You know what? Let's give a tip of the cap to the Bills defense, too. Taylor Rapp made a couple of really big hits and timely plays, breaking up passes that could have swung the game, including a pass to Garrett Wilson in the end zone. Jets had to settle for a field goal in that situation. The Bills defense did come to play and made some big stops in key moments.

Yeah, that Taylor Rapp hit in the end zone, like you mentioned, was huge. At the end of the game, I think Debar Hamlin had a tough game, but they are a much better defense in general with Taren Johnson and Terrell Bernard out there. Rapp's been a little up and down this year, but he played well tonight. I did notice after the game, there were some social media going around that DeMar Hamlin got Aaron Rodgers' jersey after the game, got the jersey swap with a little autograph saying, You're an inspiration to me. I think it was a surprise. He was just in his locker room, and Rodgers had sent it over. You forget that these guys are They're still fans. He was probably a fan of Aaron Rodgers when Rodgers was an MVP, and he said he felt like a kid on Christmas. What's better than not only getting Aaron Rodgers' jersey, but beating him along the way?

Yeah, and then getting the jersey after the fact. That's how you know right there that you've made an impact. He's got an inspiring story, and it's beautiful to see him out there. Honestly, sometimes it's a little surprising to see him out there and just laying his body on the line after what happened to him. But that's football. These are football players. More than anything, something like that just illustrates It's the fact that, look, they're competitors and their opponents and everything else, but they're all doing the same thing, which is playing a kid's game for varying sums of money, and they know the sacrifice that's involved. And DeMar Hamlin has definitely gotten an up-close experience with just how much of a sacrifice could be. And I'm sure he very much appreciates every snap that he gets to play now that he's healthy and back on the field.

So before we move on and take a little break, I do want to just put where this puts the team at. Four and two, you're up two games now. The bills are over the Jets in the division, and you have a tie break. That's significant. If there was one person that was happier that Robert Salah lost his job in the AFCs, I don't know if it was anyone but Josh Allen. I mean, Josh Allen has had a nightmare against these Robert Salah defenses over the years. His numbers have been brutal. And tonight was the opposite, 19 for 25, 215 yards, and two touch downs, and had the two key rushes. He had the score and then the play at the end. It was his third best game of his career in terms of completion percentage over expected. That Ray Davis throw against his body probably was a big part of that.

That definitely inflates the numbers.

So he's settled down after a couple of down weeks. That's going to be the Josh Allen experience. But are you worried, nick, about the lack of weapons? Davis leads the team in receiving because he has that one play. Dalton Kincaid was finally a little More involved, 6 for 51, not really hitting big plays. And then their leader in terms of receiving yards was Curtis Samuel because he got that one big play. But otherwise, it's Kean Coleman getting almost the most... I mean, not the most targets, but the most routes run. It's a little rough. They need Cleo secure to be healthier. He was out there tonight, but not every time. But I think that's something to watch as the trade deadline approaches.

Kean Coleman actually dropped a pass that would have been a beautiful completion just in front of the end zone there. So But he's a rookie. This is what we should have expected going into the season. You lose Diggs, you lose Gabe Davis, you have to rebuild your receiving core, and you're relying heavily on a rookie. They're going to take a bit of a step back when it comes to connecting with these guys, especially we saw it in Houston. A lot of them just aren't on the same page. At the end of that game, Mac Collins and Josh Allen just not on the same page on a completable pass. So you're going to have these issues.

Yeah, the fun thing about this matchup is they are out there hitting. We're getting flags for them getting in fights between quarters. That was the only flag I enjoyed. That was the only flag I enjoyed. The lights were out and they're pushing. And on the field, I know it wasn't all clean, but this was a physical game between two teams that genuinely don't seem to like each other that much. And once again, it looks like it's the Bills division. I'm not rolling the Jets out yet. I know it's a dark time for the Jets, and they have the Steelers on the road this week. That's a big game. After that, the schedule eases up relatively down the stretch.

Yeah. I mean, Albert said it right there. We're by no means out of it. Yeah, you're two and four, but you have a lot of season left. When you look at the Jets schedule, I just think about the next two weeks because they're always the most important. What's your weakness right now? Statistically, they're a number two defense in terms of yards a lot per game, but we've seen them give up big point totals in primetime games. We're going into another primetime game on Sunday night against the Steelers this week. But at the same time, you're facing one of the least explosive offenses in the NFL. If your offense is actually where you think it is after tonight, you're going to play a defense in the Steelers. But if your offense is where you think it is tonight, that's a winnable game. You dominated New England. Yes, you have to go there in the following week, but that's another winnable, very winnable game. Before you know it, you could be four and four and feel much better about your team right now. You want to hit the panic button because it's frustrating, and you see Aaron Rodgers frustrated.

But I'm telling you right now, Jets fans, ride it out a little bit longer before you decide to jump ship.

Okay. I like the optimism. That Sunday night one is huge. Three and four feels way different to me than 2 and 5 with it potentially coming apart at the seams, as Troy Akeman said after the game. I'm like, What does Troy know? He thinks this thing might collapse a little under its own weight. So maybe he is picking up a few things.