Jets could start ‘total meltdown’ after huge loss: Troy Aikman

The coach’s firing did not motivate the Jets to win Monday night against the Bills.

Troy Aikman believes things could get uglier for the reeling Jets.

“I can see this completely disintegrating,” Aikman said after Monday Night Football’s 23-20 home loss to the Bills. “It probably won’t happen. I know the players won’t agree with that.” “But I can see it happening because I think they put in a lot of effort this week to win the game and get back on track, and the owner (Woody Johnson) says this is the best team he’s had in 25 years, all those things, but they didn’t survive that. “They’re back to where they were, and now what’s the answer for them? They don’t have it.”

It suddenly looks like a Jets season that started with great ambitions might be another chapter in the book of “Never Trust the Jets” with the team suddenly 2-4 and not looking like a true contender.

Monday night represented a chance to clinch the division lead and beat a healthy opponent in the debut of new interim coach Jeff Ulbrich, but the Jets instead turned into a sloppy effort in a frustrating loss.

The once-vaunted defense had no answers for Josh Allen, failing to get a key third-down stop in the fourth quarter that would have allowed the offense to get the ball back.

Kicker Greg Zuerlein missed two field goals that certainly proved costly in a three-point game.

The team committed 11 penalties for 110 yards, including a holding violation that negated a go-ahead touchdown in the third quarter.

And for the third game in a row, future Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers had the ball in his hands and had a chance to win late and came up short. He has intercepted his final pass in back-to-back weeks.

The Patriots’ “Thursday Night Football” heights in Week 3 are a distant memory, although the offense under rookie running back Todd Downing has been doing better.

“Honestly, I don’t know where they go from here,” Aikman said. “This week, with all the changes and then making them, you have some momentum coming in, you start doing some things better than you did, and we see that from time to time when an interim coach takes over and how an interim coach can take over. The team may respond to that “Losing the game the way they lost penalties, missed field goals, not taking advantage of the red zone and all that stuff, I think it’s going to be really tough for them on a short week now.”

The Jets’ season isn’t over, but they have a tough task ahead of them on the road against a tough Steelers team on “Sunday Night Football” in Week 7, with the division-leading Texans looming in Week 9.

It’s getting late and early for Gang Green.

“They’ll talk about it, it’s a long season, which it is,” Aikman’s partner at ESPN, Joe Buck, said after the game. “But after all those changes, it’s the same kind of disappointing result for the New York Jets, although I thought the offense looked a lot better tonight.”