EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - Rex Ryan windmilled his arm and stamped his foot and flung his hat to the turf, and at that moment it required a supreme amount of willpower for him not to just run onto the field, gather the Jets and give an impromptu lesson in fundamentals.
He had just watched Antonio Allen settle under a tipped pass, like an outfielder awaiting a pop fly, and not so much drop it as deflect it. The ball ricocheted off his hands like a stone skipping along the lake.
When analyzing the outcome of a game, players often speak about the importance of the 'little things' - details, minutiae. The Jets capsized in their 27-19 loss to the Chicago Bears on Monday night because of the opposite problem: They did not do the big things well.
They did not catch. They did not bat down passes. They did not defend deep balls. They committed turnovers. They did not sustain drives instead of stalling them with interceptions in the end zone. They did not monitor a 6-6, 265-pound tight end, Martellus Bennett, who could have counted backward from 418 and still have time to catch what proved the winning touchdown, a 13-yarder from Jay Cutler on Chicago's opening possession of the second half.
And now the Jets are 1-2, with another strong-armed quarterback, Matthew Stafford, and another monstrous receiver, Calvin Johnson, set to lead Detroit next week, to test what is the team's weakest link.
It was as if the Bears (2-1) remembered at halftime that they should throw the ball downfield against a secondary shredded last week by Green Bay. Again the Jets started a third-stringer, Darrin Walls, at one cornerback spot and a converted safety, Allen, at another, and again their inexperience - and ineffectiveness - proved costly.
After Bennett's touchdown, the game devolved into a field-goal duel, with two by Nick Folk and one by Robbie Gould, with 3 minutes 10 seconds left, making the score 27-19.
Buoyed by a 51-yard catch and run by Greg Salas, the Jets advanced to the Chicago 9 when, on fourth down, Jeremy Kerley was ruled to have caught Geno Smith's pass beyond the end zone.
It was a fitting end for Smith, who, completing 26 of 43 passes for 316 yards, delivered some sharp passes but was imprecise when it counted. He threw an interception that was returned for a touchdown on his first pass, and he underthrew a toss in the end zone that Kyle Fuller leaped in front of David Nelson to catch in the third quarter.
In advance of their first prime-time game at MetLife Stadium since the 2012 Thanksgiving night debacle against New England, Ryan made a promise. He does not offer many of these anymore, but this time he felt moved.
'It won't be hard to show better than that,' Ryan said. 'I will guarantee we play better than that.'
They did. For one play. Then, Smith dropped back, pumped left, whirled right and flung a screen pass. It took Smith until practice Wednesday, he said, to forget about the Jets collapse in Green Bay. It might take twice as long for him to flush this throw from his system.
The closest Jet to the ball was not a running back but an offensive lineman, Willie Colon. The closest Bear to it was a safety, Ryan Mundy, who swooped in to catch it, returning the interception 45 yards for a touchdown. Thirty two seconds in, the Jets trailed, 7-0.
Any comparisons to a game that introduced the term 'butt fumble' into the lexicon were vastly premature (and unfair), and yet the Jets seemed intent to at least provide it competition. After Saalim Hakim came within a fingernail of blocking a Chicago punt, Jalen Saunders muffed the ball, with the Bears recovering at the Jets 40.
On the next snap, a 33-yard pass-interference call on Walls, who seemed hardly at fault while getting tangled with Alshon Jeffery along the right sideline, led to a 7-yard touchdown pass, on third down, from Cutler to Bennett.
These were the sort of mistakes - in coverage, in discipline, in practice - that undermined the Jets last week, and they were nearly sunk again, when a defensive holding call on Antonio Allen negated a third-down stop inside the red zone. But the Jets' defense held firm, forcing a 24-yard field goal by Gould that extended the Bears' lead to 17-3.
It all must have seemed so foreign to both teams, who last week experienced opposite ends of a dramatic comeback. The Bears rallied from a 17-point deficit to win at San Francisco. The Jets blew an 18-point lead against the Packers. Last week they spoke of resilience and strength of spirit, how they would not let a collapse, capped by a botched timeout, define or demoralize them.
That charge on Monday started with Smith, whose 43-yard pass to the rookie Jace Amaro led to a 28-yard field goal by Folk that drew the Jets to within 17-6. And it continued with a ferocious response by their defense, which forced a punt on the Bears' ensuing possession.
With Eric Decker unavailable, hampered by a balky hamstring, Smith homed in on Kerley, who caught five first-half passes. Three of those receptions came on an efficient 77-yard drive, which ended with a marvelous 19-yard toss up the seam to Kerley that made the score 17-13 with 3:45 remaining in the half.
If not for a premature whistle by the officials, the Jets likely would have entered halftime with the lead. While being sacked by David Harris, Cutler dropped the ball, and Demario Davis scooped it up and ran into the end zone. The play had been blown dead, officials apparently believing that the ground had caused the fumble, but a subsequent replay overturned the call and gave the Jets the ball. Small consolation.
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