The urban legend said that underneath the old Giants Stadium, famed mob boss Jimmy Hoffa was buried.
Well, the Jets seem to be taking a page from that book and putting their own bad memories six feet under.
Yesterday morning before practice, the Jets took a game ball from Monday night’s crushing 45-3 loss at New England and buried it near their practice field at the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center.
With each toss of dirt atop the ball at the bottom of the hole, the Jets were burying the memories of perhaps the worst and most embarrassing loss in team history.
Perhaps they should put the game plan for the Patriots down there at the bottom of the hole, too.
New York spent much of last week in the lead-up to the game talking about the significance of the showdown, calling it a statement game.
They are now left to pick up the pieces following the humiliating loss.
Humiliating, they say, but not demoralizing.
“The big thing is we learned from this, we know what happened,” Ryan said. “That’s gone, we’re not looking backwards, we’re looking ahead.”
Ryan addressed his Jets yesterday morning, prior to practice in the team meeting room.
The usually gregarious and jovial coach’s speech was shorter than usual, perhaps not even 30 seconds in length. It was simple and to the point, something that Ryan is not known to be.
“He said ‘It’s time to move on. I’m done talking about it. We talk no more about it. Move on,’” lineman Wayne Hunter said. “I don’t even know if it lasted 30 seconds.”
The difficulty for the Jets is the magnitude of the loss, which saw them fall one game behind New England in not only the race for the AFC East title but also for possible home-field advantage in the playoffs. The first-quarter score alone, 17-0, indicates just how bad things got for the Jets on Monday night. Quarterback Mark Sanchez called the performance by the Patriots an “old-fashioned butt whooping.”
No one got whooped more soundly than safety Eric Smith, whose first quarter pass interference call in the end zone set up New England’s first touchdown of the game. Smith had earned the starting spot days earlier after Friday’s season-ending leg injury to Jim Leonhard.
“I think we can move on, but a loss like this one, it takes a little time,” Smith said. “It can be tough when you lose that way but I’m pretty level headed. For me personally, I just need to get back to preparing. It can be tough but you can’t dwell on it.”
On the other end of the locker room and perhaps on the other end of the spectrum in processing the loss is kicker Nick Folk, who badly hooked a 53-yard field at the end of the Jets first drive of the game. Folk said that he “Forgot about the game as soon as he stepped on the plane” for the team’s flight back to the New York area. The kicker, who has made just seven of his last 13 field goal attempts, said you have to accept the bumps when you play in the NFL and you need to “move on.”
“It’s not really an issue for us, these things happen and you can’t focus on it or look back,” Folk said. “You simply have to move on, you can’t let it hold you back.”
And the best way to do that, the Jets say, is to get back on the field.
“Sunday can’t come here soon enough,” defensive tackle Mike DeVito said. “Everyone keeps on saying that.”
And when Sunday does come, Ryan expects his team to respond in its usual way.
“Swagger or not, that’s who we are,” Ryan said. “We’re not going to dwell on this loss the rest of the season, we got beat. It’s time to move on.”
