It may have looked like the Jets were not trying hard enough at times in Sunday night’s loss to the Steelers.
It is the contrary, according to interim coach Jeff Ulbrich.
Ulbrich believes the 2-5 Jets may be pressing too hard to try to snap out of their four-game losing skid.
“I think there’s an element right now because of the high character of our locker room in this team that there’s a bit of pressing a little bit to make things happen,” Ulbrich said. “And it’s coming from the absolute best place on earth. Guys wanting to do the best and provide the best for their teammates and this organization, this fan base. And we have all got to take a deep breath and just do our job and collectively.”
The Steelers smacked the Jets around in the second half on Sunday night.
Pittsburgh scored 31 unanswered points after the Jets took a 15-6 lead. Aaron Rodgers threw an interception with 1:15 left in the first half, which led to Pittsburgh’s first touchdown.
The halftime lead was cut to 15-13 and the Jets never seemed to recover.
After the game, Rodgers said the Jets were flat both before the game and at halftime.
“I didn’t feel it, to be honest with you, in pregame,” Ulbirch said. “I didn’t. And I felt like we came out and played well early on. We played a better half of football in the first half. So I felt that was right. I think you might have felt a little bit of what I’ve been talking about as far as pressing too hard. But halftime, I would absolutely agree with him.
“You know, there’s an element of they got the last second score there. And although we were still winning, there was definitely a momentum shift. And that’s something we have to improve. That can’t be part of our M.O. That can’t be how we respond to adversity. Can’t be. You know, we had a long talk about that in the team meeting today about adversity and how we have the ability to respond the way we need to. And after speaking to some guys, I think that’s something that we’re going to be greatly improved on going forward.”
Center Joe Tippmann said the sequence before halftime had too much of an effect on the Jets.
“We can’t come into that locker room gloom and doom,” Tippmann said. “We’ve got to be picking each other up and focus on the things that we did great. You know, maybe clean up some mistakes that were made. But we just got to be ready to come out that second half, especially with us getting the ball. We knew on offense we were getting the ball, so we just got to come out ready to play.”
The Jets failed to score in the second half while the Steelers put up 24 more points.
The Jets now head to Foxborough on Sunday to face the Patriots with a chance to snap out of their funk.
The Jets have been criticized for having plenty of stars on their roster but no cohesion as a team.
Many people compared them to a Fantasy Football team on Monday.
Ulbrich said that idea is wrong and pointed out how Davante Adams is already working with the young receivers and Rodgers’ role as a team leader.
“I would absolutely disagree,” Ulbrich said. “Whether you see that from the outside world or not, just speaking from the inside, the connection of this locker room and the teammates within this team, as strong as I’ve ever been around. … I get the narrative. I get what you’re saying. But speaking from the inside, that’s absolutely not the truth. In my opinion.”
