Sugarcoating is not in Jets interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich's nature, and it was not on his mind or in his notes when he took the podium beneath State Farm Stadium to discuss the Jets' 31-6 loss in the desert at the hands of the Cardinals on Sunday afternoon. He took his team's game and performance head-on and personal.
"After a long layoff, they were not prepared to play," Ulbrich said, referring to the Jets' previous game, the 21-13 home win over the Texans two Thursday nights earlier. "We didn't execute even close to our standard, and that falls on my shoulders 100 percent. I didn't do a good enough job of getting these guys ready.
"I thought the physicality and the effort was fine. That was not the issue. It was execution. And then that was in all three phases. So until we get that right, this thing will not turn."
What often didn't turn from the outset were the bodies of Cardinals ballcarriers being brought to the ground because one of the Jets' issues was tackling. It was noticeable in the Cards' 147-yard running game (4.6 yards/carry) as well as in the short and medium passing game orchestrated by QB Kyler Murray.
"We've got to work at it. We've got to get better at it," Ulbrich said of the missed tackles that enabled Arizona to average 7.1 yards/touch and chalk up 28 first downs. "I thought we made a huge emphasis of it this week. Obviously not enough, so we've got to continue to take the extra step. We've got to wrap, we've got to get population to the ball — the core foundation of this game from a defensive perspective."
As an example, the tackling issue was seen in the second quarter when CB Sauce Gardner tried to make a high tackle of Trey McBride for what would have been a third-and-7 stop in Arizona territory. The 245-pound McBride took the 200-pound Gardner for a short ride, then threw him on the turn up field en route to a 17-yard catch-and-run to keep the home team moving toward its third TD.
But Ulbrich wasn't buying that exchange as a first-half inflection point.
"It was just one of many plays that we've got to get better at," he said. "And it comes down to, like I said, technique-based fundamentals, tackling, getting off blocks."
The pass defense alone was tough pill to swallow for Brick and his unit, which came into the game ranked second in the NFL in net pass yards/game allowed for the sixth week in a row. The Jets had no answer for Kyler Murray and targets that included TE McBride, RB James Conner and rookie WR Marvin Harrison Jr. Murray completed his day with 17 consecutive completions, a Cardinals franchise record, and his 91.7% accuracy on 22-of-24 passing was the best by an opposing QB starter against the Jets in their franchise history.
"I'll say this: They probably passed the ball a little bit more than we had anticipated," Ulbrich said of the Cards' split of 32 rushes to 25 dropbacks. "We had a huge emphasis on stopping the run, understanding that was the style of that offense. They've made their money in the run game. And Kyler did an amazing job. Credit to him to hit us and especially when we didn't execute. We didn't do a good enough job in coverage at times, too."
See all of the best game photos from the Week 10 road game vs. the Arizona Cardinals.
Aaron Rodgers and the Jets offense didn't fare much better. Ulbrich noted the unit did move the ball, although it couldn't crack the end zone in three red zone trips. The 207 yards were in counterpoint to the drive numbers: The Jets had only six possessions, the franchise record for fewest in a game, but four of those series went 11, 12, 10 and 15 plays. Yet again, the Green & White had no explosive plays — their longest completion was 15 yards, longest run 14 yards.
"I thought we did a good job sustaining drives early," he said. "And we knew that was going to be a big part of the keys to victory this week, especially knowing what they could do offensively from a run-game perspective."
The obligatory shattered-postseason question came up, primarily because the Jets were feeling good about restarting their season with their strong second half vs. the Texans. But just like sugarcoating, the IHC was not about to buy that pie in the sky either.
"In all honesty, the playoffs should be the last thing on our mind right now," he said. "We've just got to play better football. We've got to get back to basics. We ought to be doing the things that we do well, featuring the players in the best way we can. And then the players have got to do the best job of executing the game plan.
"And we'll take this one game at a time and we'll see what happens."
