New York Jets Coach Deems This Failure in Cardinals Loss ‘Criminal’

New York Jets interim coach Jeff Ulbrich was critical of one specific aspect of his team’s blowout loss to Arizona.

Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray (1) runs for a touchdown ahead of New York Jets cornerback Sauce Gardner (1) during the third quarter at State Farm Stadium. / Michael Chow/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

New York Jets interim coach Jeff Ulbrich and his staff watched the film of their 31-6 loss to the Arizona Cardinals in a Phoenix-area hotel on Sunday.

Before the season, the Jets (3-7) decided they would stay behind in Arizona on Sunday night and then fly back to New York the next day, as opposed to getting on a plane directly after the game.

If there was any upside, it gave the staff a head start on dissecting what went wrong against Arizona.

Defense is Ulbrich’s specialty, and he didn’t like much about what he saw. That aspect of the game really didn’t sit well with him.

“(There was) an egregious, criminal amount of missed tackles,” Ulbrich said. “Not good enough.”

Per ESPN, the Jets missed 20 tackles on Sunday, so Ulbrich’s description of “egregious” fits. It takes an entire defense to fail to tackle like that.

But cornerback Sauce Gardner got the brunt of it after the game. He failed to tackle Cardinals tight end Trey McBride on a critical third-down play in the first half. It’s not that Gardner didn’t try. He had him wrapped up.

But, he still failed to bring him down in the open field and McBride went on to get the first down. Arizona later scored.

"I know I missed one today, I got to make that tackle,” Gardner said. “"Ain't nobody gonna be harder on me than me."

The loss was mystifying in a couple of respects. First, the Jets had 10 days of rest between their win over Houston and their loss to Arizona. New York had time to get healthy and extra time to scheme for the game.

Second, the Jets had a real opportunity to rescue their season. New York was in 10th place in the AFC entering the week. Thanks to losses by Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Denver, the Jets had a chance to move up to eighth place with a win. That would have been one spot away from the final playoff berth.

Worse yet, the Jets knew all of that before they took the field.

"Everyone is pissed,” Ulbrich said. “There is collective anger and frustration.”

New York has a week to prepare for Indianapolis at MetLife Stadium. Any realistic shot at a playoff berth is dead. Ulbrich said on Sunday they shouldn’t even be thinking about it.

He just wants this team to get better.

“I'm so disappointed in myself that I didn't get these guys prepared for this,” he said. “We knew tackling was a point of emphasis and we thought we drilled it. Obviously we didn't drill it well enough.”