Jets lose heartbreaker against Colts on last-minute touchdown to bury their playoff hopes for good

The Jets season came to an end just before 4 p.m. on Sunday afternoon at MetLife Stadium when Aaron Rodgers was sacked on third down to let the final seconds tick off the clock in a stunning 28-27 loss to the Colts.

The loss drops the Jets to 3-8, a record no one saw coming. The math will say the playoffs are still possible. Your brain says otherwise.

“Disappointed,” a despondent Rodgers said. “Disappointed.”

There was no single cause of death to the 2024 season.

You can point at Rodgers, who had another game where he looked like an average to below-average quarterback instead of the Hall of Famer we saw in Green Bay.

You can point at the defense, which allowed two touchdown drives in the fourth quarter, showing no backbone when the Jets desperately needed a stop.

You can point at the coaches, who seem overmatched week after week and again on Sunday when interim coach Jeff Ulbrich made questionable decisions down the stretch that bit him in the backside.

You can point at owner Woody Johnson, who decided to fire coach Robert Saleh five games into the season and the Jets are now 1-5 since.

Wherever you want to put the blame, it is now clear the 2024 Jets are dead. Another season over before you sit down for Thanksgiving dinner.

Yes, they have six more games but that is just a formality on the way to the decisions that await in the offseason about who will be coaching, general managing and playing for this team next season.

For a brief time on Sunday, it looked like the Jets might overcome a slow start and find a way to keep the faint pulse of their season beating. The Jets overcame an early 13-0 hole and had a 27-22 lead with 2:41 left in the game after Anders Carlson kicked his second field goal of the game.

Anthony Richardson and the Colts got the ball back at their 30 and Richardson drilled a 39-yard pass down the sideline to Alec Pierce, who found a hole in the Jets coverage between Sauce Gardner and Jalen Mills to get to the Jets 27. Richardson then hit Josh Downs for a 17-yard completion to the 10. Three plays later, Richardson ran around the left side and over Jets cornerback D.J. Reed for a touchdown and a 28-27 Colts lead.

“Ultimately, that last drive was just very demoralizing and wasn’t our standard,” Reed said. “They get the explosive play, but they just can’t get in the end zone and they ended up getting into the end zone in seven plays. That ultimately is not our standard. I put that game on the defense.”

Rodgers got the ball back with 46 seconds left in the game. His first play was a throw backwards for a fumble and a 13-yard loss. He then threw a short pass to Breece Hall and got sacked to end the game.

The Jets now have a bye week to think about what went wrong this year.

“Angry. Frustrated,” Ulbrich said. “Not in a good place from that standpoint. Obviously, guys are working their butts off and obviously there’s an element that something’s missing, whether that be in the preparation, in the game-planning, in the execution, or if it’s a little bit of all of those things.”

The Jets don’t seem to have any answers for what has gone wrong for this team. The 3-8 record is the team’s worst since 2021, when Zach Wilson was in his rookie season.

“It’s disappointing,” Rodgers said. “I know I’ve said that three times now, but we’ve been working really hard trying to figure out what the issues are. It’s not just one person. Sometimes it’s me. Sometimes it’s somebody else. … Unfortunately we didn’t score enough points and that’s been our problem all year.”

While the ending was what did the Jets in, the beginning set the tone. The Jets did not have a first down on their first five possessions. The Colts jumped out to a 13-0 lead. The Jets finally found some offense on their final drive before halftime. Rodgers found Hall for a 29-yard touchdown and the Jets went into halftime down 13-7.

The defense got a turnover at the start of the second half when Jamien Sherwood forced a fumble by Richardson and Javon Kinlaw recovered at the Colts 25.

Two plays later, Hall ran in for an 18-yard touchdown and the Jets took their first lead at 14-13.

The teams traded field goals in the third quarter and the Jets had a 17-16 lead entering the fourth. Rodgers threw his second touchdown of the game, an 11-yarder to Kenny Yeboah to make it 24-16 Jets.

The Colts answered with an eight-play, 70-yard drive with Richardson hitting Downs for a 10-yard touchdown. The Colts failed to convert the two-point attempt and the Jets had a 24-22 lead with 10:11 to go.

The Jets drove to the Colts 17. On fourth-and-2, Ulbrich first had the offense on the field to try to draw the Colts offside. He then used his second timeout, which he could have used later in the game, before sending the field goal team on.

Ulbrich said he trusted his defense to get a stop and that is why he did not go for it. Carlson hit the 35-yarder to make it 27-22, setting up the final drive by the Colts.

“At the end of the day, on offense we have to score and put it away and the defense has to get a stop,” Hall said. “It stings on both sides. Both feel like we could’ve done more.”