Greg Zuerlein was as accountable and brutally trustworthy as he may very well be after lacking two essential brief discipline objectives in Monday night time’s 23-20 Jets loss to the Payments at MetLife Stadium.
Sadly for the 2-4 Jets, accountability and honesty doesn’t win you video games.
And Zuerlein, the Jets kicker for the previous two-plus seasons, has now value the workforce two potential victories in six video games this season.
In Week 2, he missed a 50-yard discipline aim within the waning seconds of a 10-9 loss to the Broncos.
On Monday night time, in a sport that may have vaulted the Jets into first place within the AFC East with a win, Zuerlein hit the left upright on a 32-yard try with 55 seconds remaining within the third quarter with the sport tied at 20-20 and a 43-yarder halfway by means of the fourth with it nonetheless knotted at 20-20.
Afterward, he made the beautiful admission that he’s mired in a hunch that features observe, not simply the video games.
“I’m simply not kicking the ball,” Zuerlein mentioned. “I wouldn’t say the [windy] circumstances performed into it. It’s simply me not kicking the ball the right manner, and outcomes confirmed for themselves. Not simply this sport, however earlier video games [Denver] as effectively. These guys [teammates] deserve higher, and I can do higher. I simply have to do it.’’
Zuerlein was 30-for-37 on discipline objectives in his first season with the Jets, in 2022, good for 81.1 %. Final season, he was 35-for-38, 92.1 %.
This season, he’s an alarming 6-for-10 for 60 %, and 60-percent kickers aren’t employed for very lengthy, though Jets interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich preached after the loss that he nonetheless believes in Zuerlein.
“I’m not involved with Greg,’’ Ulbrich mentioned. “I do know the observe file of this man, and he’s going to catch his rhythm right here and … on this season, he’s going to win video games for us. I do know that, 100-percent.’’
Maybe essentially the most disturbing factor to listening to Zuerlein communicate after the sport is that he indicated that he’s slumping in observe, too.
“It’s simple to inform I’m not hitting the ball the way in which I understand how,” he mentioned. “I’m getting ready to one of the best of my talents, and the outcomes haven’t come but. Hopefully, that’ll flip and go from there.”
Like a golfer who has the hooks and hits the whole lot left, Zuerlein’s misses have been persistently left.
“That’s type of the ball I’ve been hitting,” he mentioned. “On the whole, I’m simply not hitting the ball the right manner, the way in which I understand how. In the present day, it got here to chunk us. I’m attempting varied issues to get that mounted. Each day in observe, I am going on the market [trying] to get rid of these … these dangerous kicks, as a result of they’re costing us.”
Zuerlein, in his thirteenth NFL season and together with his fourth workforce, mentioned this isn’t the primary time he’s been mired in a funk like this.
“I’ve been by means of ups and downs and hell and again many, many occasions, and proper now it’s not good,” he mentioned. “It’s not adequate, as a result of these guys on this locker room should win. That bothers you as a participant, since you see all of the onerous work they put in, and I’m not holding up my finish of the cut price. That’s on me.”
