The Top 12 Worst Games of 2021: VI
Jets at Texans, Week 12: Sadness Bowl Goes to Plan; These Teams Kill Their QBs
If you were wondering what it would look like if Rex Burkhead was a four-down back in an NFL offense, then this is the game for you. This game did not merit much more than a few glances to check the score and maybe see if a hideous parlay involving this wretched game were on track. But for Houston and New York fans, it was like wearing sunglasses with iron maiden lenses.
On its face, this looks like a rather traditional football score. There have to have been thousands of football games that have finished 21-14 in the history of the sport. But much like Vikings-Browns in week 4, the way the Jets reached 21 points was silly enough that it deserves examination: a field goal, a touchdown and 2 point conversion, a touchdown and PAT, and a field goal. It should not take so many disjoint scores to broach the 20-point barrier. But that level of effort in getting to a score that 15 other NFL teams reached or exceeded in week 12 was par for the course in a game that lacked basic hallmarks of well—played pro football. This one looked and felt like a preseason game for much of this contest. One of the things that bad teams that have experienced a lot of turnover typically struggle with in the preseason is protecting their quarterback, figuring out protections, and limiting sacks – there were 9 combined in this game, and they all looked avoidable if these teams and quarterbacks were further along in the journey towards competitiveness. But as things stood in Week 12 of 2021, these teams were probably the two worst in the NFL along with Jacksonville. New York had been spiraling on defense, giving up 430+ yards in 5 of their previous 7 games (the two where they didn’t were the legendary Mike White win over Cincinnati and a loss to the Dolphins’ typically limp offense, who put up a not-unrespectable 388 yards the week prior). Houston, meanwhile, was probably the worst offense in the NFL, and was making a convincing case as one of the worst offenses of all time: after Tyrod Taylor’s injury in week 2 against the Browns, the Davis Mills-led Texans proceed to put up 9, 0, 22, 3, 5, 22, and 9 points before their much-needed bye. If you’re counting, that’s 70 points in 7 weeks. Bad offense, meet bad defense.
Something had to give. The way things played out, you’d be hard-pressed to guess which of these teams had the worse passing offense. New York actually ran the ball well, putting up 157 yards. That sounds like a pretty productive day on the ground – in a vacuum, it is – but it’s concerning when you realize that, even without accounting for the 4 sacks New York took for 36 yards, they outrushed their passing game by 12 yards. When you factor those sacks in, Zach Wilson wound up with 109 net passing yards. But Houston was so bad on dropbacks that it didn’t matter – they themselves ended up with only 106. Two teams combining for 215 net pass yards is a rare, rare sight. Tyrod Taylor did throw for 158 yards and two touchdowns (with sack yardage removed from that calculation), but that doesn’t tell the story of how horrendous he was. All 5 of his sacks were on him and provided a cautionary tale of the consequences of holding the ball too long. But his worst play of the day (which Tyrod probably wishes had been a sack) came on a play action fake reverse screen pass dripping with far too much frippery that took as long to develop as this sentence took to type. Trying to parabola a ball to David Johnson with the NYJ pass rush bearing down on him, Tyrod’s under-arced pass was tipped and intercepted by John Franklin-Myers and returned 32 yards, ending Houston’s first drive of the day after 12 plays and 0 points. Even though New York took the ensuing drive to the Houston 4, though, Zach Wilson took a very avoidable sack on 3rd and 4, losing 9 yards and eliminating the possibility of a 4th down attempt and forcing the Jets to settle for a Matt Ammendola field goal, proving that he was the better of the two people named Amendola that played in this game (the expatriate ex-Patriot named Danny also played in this game, but his greatest contribution was catching Tyrod Taylor’s desperation dumpoff with 6 seconds left). But it was on the next Jets drive that Wilson authored a forceful response to Tyrod’s terrible DL interception, throwing what definitely looked like an illegal forward pass (he was very close to being beyond the line of scrimmage) that got intercepted by DB Tavierre Thomas. What’s worse, Wilson could have scrambled for a solid 5 to 10 yards. What’s double worse, it was a shovel pass. Having a hopelessly unsupported rookie passer and a middling dual threat passer on a torn-down roster is how we arrived at a game that saw fewer combined net passing yards than 22 other teams in Week 12. Somehow, though, neither of these teams were the worst in terms of net passing yards this week: that disgrace went to Tennessee, who only put up 85 against New England. For one shining, ephemeral moment in time, the 2021 Houston Texans and New York Jets were more formidable offensive juggernauts than the eventual number 1 seed in the conference. Quite an afternoon for the Texans, who were probably trying to lose as many 2021 games as possible.
Even though this was a game featuring two teams in the very early stages of what promise to be long rebuilds, there were bright spots here and there for New York and Houston fans to enjoy. The issue is, they might be moot points for these two teams going forward. Tyrod, despite his morbid numbers, did flash some of the signs that prove why he continually gets chosen as a band aid quarterback for teams with rookie quarterbacks (or angling for future rookie quarterbacks): he only ran twice for 30 yards, but he showed mobility on rollouts and recovered a poor snap while minimizing lost yards on the inevitable sack. He threw a really pretty deep ball touchdown to Brandin Cooks (seriously, is this the 2017 Patriots?) and seemed to read the field well at times. But there’s no future with Tyrod – he’s on the Giants now, and it looks like Davis Mills will be The Guy for at least a little while in Houston. As for the Jets, Wilson didn’t look great, but he wasn’t JaMarcus Russell bad. He showed velocity, if not touch, on a few throws, and escaped a couple sacks that would have enveloped lesser running QBs. He even ran a touchdown in from 4 yards out, atoning for his earlier faux pas at the Texans’ 4. He didn’t throw any touchdowns, though; the other touchdown came from running back Andrew Walter, who combined nicely with veteran Hoosier back Tevin Coleman and former Lion Ty Johnson for 157 yards on 30 running back rushes. But those names just listed are not “Michael Carter” or “Breece Hall,” who are the running backs that the Jets have actually drafted in the last two seasons & who figure to be the metaphorical right and left hooks of this offense’s ground game in 2022 and the future. So basically, forget this nice performance from the triple-headed hydra of Coleman, Walter and Johnson. You’ll probably not be seeing suchlike again. As for these teams’ protracted builds back towards contender levels, well – there’s probably more sadness coming before the joyful moments arrive. Texan and Jet fans, here’s to hoping your respective divisions remain the seismic epicenters of instability they’ve been for the last 20 years.
In a game full of offensive moments, the most offensive of them all may have been C.J. Moseley’s sleeves visibly conflicting with the rest of his uniform. They look to be just a few decimals off of the proper “Gotham Green” hex code.