PITTSBURGH — It was perhaps inevitable that the Jets, whose surprisingly easy season-opening victory over the Buffalo Bills prompted at least one player to proclaim that they had put the league on notice, would eventually slip back a bit toward the competition.
On Sunday, the Pittsburgh Steelers provided the reality check and maybe a truer early measure of where the Jets stack up with the N.F.L.'s elite. The offense that had sputtered during the preseason, only to rev up against the Bills, stalled for most of the day against the Steelers, generating just 219 yards in a 27-10 loss.
After scoring a touchdown on their opening drive of the game, a 14 yard pass to Santonio Holmes by Mark Sanchez, the Jets could manage only another field goal.
The third-quarter insertion of Tim Tebow for his first offensive snaps of the game provided only a brief spark. Lined up as the quarterback with Sanchez on the sideline, Tebow ran for 23 yards. Then he handed off twice. And that was it. Sanchez returned, the drive sputtered and the game rolled on. It was a far cry from last week, when Sanchez played with energy and precision, throwing three touchdown passes and completing two-thirds of his passes.
But the Steelers are not the Bills, and they had not started 0-2 since 2002. Even without the injured James Harrison and Troy Polamalu, the Steeler defense harassed Sanchez and crowded his receivers. Sanchez completed just 10 of 27 passes, four of them on the first drive. Until they caught two passes on the final drive, the Jets' wide receivers had not recorded a reception since the first quarter.
The Jets' defense wasn't so lucky in getting pressure on Ben Roethlisberger, who excels at eluding a rush to extend a play.
After the Steelers settled for field goals on their first two drives, they began a second-quarter drive on their 20-yard line. Roethlisberger hit receiver Emmanuel Sanders streaking across the field.
Sanders then ran for the left sideline and was hit out of bounds by Jets safety Laron Landry. The play was worth 32 yards and put the Steelers in position for a 1-yard touchdown pass to Heath Miller just a few minutes later.
That was the first time the Steelers led, and, it seemed, the last time the Jets had any momentum. They were curiously conservative when they got the ball back with 1:03 remaining in the first half at their 31.
Perhaps it was a signal that Coach Rex Ryan, who knew his team would get the ball first in the second half, still feared a mistake by Sanchez that would sink his team into a deeper hole almost as much as he trusted his decision-making in a hurry-up offense.
The stagnation was compounded, though, when the Jets managed to move backward a yard on their first drive of the third quarter. That gave the Steelers a drive that started on their 41 and ended when Roethlisberger sidestepped a blitz and heaved a pass toward the right corner of the end zone.
Cornerback Antonio Cromartie, assigned to cover the Steelers' top receiver, Mike Wallace, in Darrelle Revis's absence, ran past Wallace when Wallace stopped short and — with his body sideways to be parallel to the sideline — leaped to catch the ball. Cromartie waved frantically that Wallace had stepped out of bounds, but he had not, and the 37-yard touchdown pass gave the Steelers a margin they held until deep into the fourth quarter.
The Jets had plenty of chances to rally. But mistakes undid most of them.
Punt returner Jeremy Kerley muffed a punt that would have given the Jets superb field position late in the third quarter. There were dropped passes. And the Jets could not take advantage of what looked to be a phantom pass interference call against the Steelers in the fourth quarter.
Most troubling of all, the Jets' defense — the foundation upon which this season will be built — could not get the Steelers off the field when it had to.
The Steelers dominated the time of possession, with almost 37 minutes to the Jets' 23, a deficit that the Jets' offense is simply not explosive enough to make up for.
By the time the Steelers' Isaac Redman scored the Steelers' final touchdown on a 2-yard run late in the fourth quarter, the Jets could only look up at the waving Terrible Towels, and across the field at the Steelers, to recognize a team steeped in consistency. It is something the Jets, so accustomed to topsy-turvy seasons, will have to strive for this season.
That may have been the most important part of Sunday's awakening for the Jets. They may not be the circus that they are often portrayed as. But they are also not the juggernaut they may have thought they were last week.
EXTRA POINTS
Running back Shonn Greene took a hit to the head early in the second quarter and went into the locker room, but returned in the third quarter.... Fullback JOHN CONNER left the game with a knee injury in the third quarter and did not return.
By SALMAN MASOOD 17 Sep, 2012
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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/sports/football/offense-stalls-as-jets-fall-to-steelers.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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