Garrett Wilson has faced a lot of losses in his three seasons with the New York Jets.
He lost ten times during his rookie year, another ten last year, and now ten more — and still counting — this season.
The latest loss came on Sunday when the Jets were ahead late in the game against Miami but lost after blowing the lead, which has become a troublingly common pattern.
“When you’re up in the fourth quarter, all of a sudden it starts to feel like you have a losing problem,” the wide receiver said after the Jets’ 32-26 overtime loss. “You have a gene or something.”
It’s a reasonable explanation at this point, especially for fans who are frustrated after watching the Jets (3-10) miss the playoffs for 14 years in a row. This is the longest active playoff drought in the NFL, and it also tops the longest droughts in the NBA, WNBA, NHL, or Major League Baseball.
“Losing hurts in general,” right guard Alijah Vera-Tucker said Monday. “So when you stack up those L’s, that’s obviously not where anybody in this building wants to be. That’s not anybody’s standard at all.”
Garrett Wilson warms up before the game
Instead of progress, the Jets are setting negative records. They’ve now lost five games in which they had a lead in the fourth quarter, a franchise worst. And they’ve done it in three straight games.
New York has now had nine consecutive losing seasons, which is also the longest active losing streak in the NFL.
The Jets couldn’t even enjoy what interim coach Jeff Ulbrich called Aaron Rodgers’ “best performance of the season.” The 41-year-old quarterback threw for 339 yards, ending a 34-game regular season streak without passing for 300 yards, and he threw a 3-yard touchdown pass to Davante Adams.
But it wasn’t enough.
Not when the defense and special teams made critical mistakes again, even while the Jets were holding a late lead. And then, they lost.
“I wouldn’t say more frustrating, but probably equally frustrating,” Ulbrich said of the latest loss. “There have been, in my opinion, seven games that have come down to the end of the game and have been within one score and we didn’t get it done, and for a lot of different reasons when you look at the span of that seven games.
“But we haven’t been good enough in those moments, and we need to be.”