GLENDALE, Ariz. – The New York Jets’ harbinger of doom came before the game even started. The Denver Broncos had just lost and shortly afterwards the Indianapolis Colts had lost as well. In the press box at State Farm Stadium, General Manager Joe Douglas and other members of the Jets front office celebrated. They clapped. They smiled.

In their eyes, the day had started well. Those two losses would help the Jets in the AFC playoff race, a much-needed development as the team was eyeing an improbable run to end the season.

That won’t happen. Douglas left the press box with just over 12 minutes left in the fourth quarter and walked to the elevators, his team trailing the Arizona Cardinals 31-6. It was the same score when owner Woody Johnson and his brother Christopher headed there shaking their heads with four minutes to go.

MURRAY MAGIC 🪄 pic.twitter.com/DKVUFxrwcJ

— Arizona Cardinals (@AZCardinals) November 10, 2024

Perhaps, for a franchise that entered the season with such high expectations, that result should be shocking. Instead, it feels routine, in many ways inevitable for a team that has done this all year long – for many years. It’s not the first time the Jets have followed up a surprising win with a humiliating loss, and it won’t be the last. On November 10, the Jets’ 2024 season was declared dead. The optimism that flowed through the organization when training camp started in July has been replaced by fear. And there is an ominous feeling, an almost certainty, that more horrors will occur over the next seven games.

“When I think back on the game, it’s not that shocking,” wide receiver Garrett Wilson said. “Is it shocking considering the way we practice during the week, how we operated during training camp, what we have in this locker room? Yes, it’s shocking. But as far as being out there and just the atmosphere and how it felt? Yeah, that sounds about right.”

The Jets’ fate – misery – was predetermined. Now the players are resigned to it. That would be the only way to explain the efforts of a team that arrived in the desert with the season on the line and leaves Monday morning feeling as if the year is already over.

“After a long absence there, they weren’t prepared to play,” interim coach Jeff Ulbrich said. “We haven’t performed even close to our standard and that falls 100 percent on my shoulders.”

The problems predate Ulbrich and will likely postdate him as well. Johnson fired Robert Saleh on Oct. 8 with a band-aid on a gaping wound that likely should have been addressed this offseason. A week later, Johnson pushed to trade for Davante Adams, an owner who thought he was making smart moves on a chessboard when in reality he was playing checkers.

“It’s obviously frustrating,” Adams said. “It’s not our football standard, it’s not my football standard, so it’s frustrating. I don’t really know what to say. It was just a weird, weird day.”

The Jets defense had trouble dealing with Arizona issues all day. (Michael Chow / The Republic via Imagn Images)

The Jets picked up an impressive victory on Halloween night against a Houston Texans team that was headed to the postseason. That win came on a Thursday, giving them three extra days of rest before Sunday. The extra break essentially served as a long nap, and the Jets forgot to set their alarms. Why? How?

“Yeah, I don’t know,” Aaron Rodgers said. “Good question. I’m not sure. I don’t have an answer for you, sorry.”

Wilson added: “You’re going to play that way and it’s going to be hard to find that energy. I don’t think we went into this with the wrong mentality… I just think at the end of the day it’s all about Sunday. If you play poorly, you have to fake it a bit to make it look real. But the energy isn’t there because we play like trash. That’s how I see it.”

The Cardinals scored on their first drive, six plays for 70 yards in two minutes, capped by a James Conner 1-yard touchdown run and with a 44-yard reception that came just short of the end zone when Conner landed on his butt cheek before the plane crosses. Arizona scored again on its next possession, another 70-yard drive, this one ending with a 1-yard Kyler Murray touchdown run. They scored on their third drive, again going 70 yards and finishing with a 9-yard touchdown pass from Murray to Marvin Harrison.

On that drive, the Cardinals had a third-and-7 on their own 33-yard line, and cornerback Sauce Gardner set up Cardinals Trey McBride on a short catch. Gardner tried to wrap his arms around the 6-4, 250-pounder and bring him to the ground. Instead, McBride tossed it aside, gaining 17 yards and keeping the drive going.

IT’S A BIRD. IT’S AN AIRPLANE. IT’S TREY MCBRIDE HURDLING FOR THE THIRD TIME THIS SEASON!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/bBevRNvSnu

— Arizona Cardinals (@AZCardinals) November 10, 2024

“I have to make that tackle,” Gardner said. “I held him up, eventually I went to the ground, I just tried to pull him down, he stayed up.”

The Jets, meanwhile, remained down. After Harrison scored, it was 21-6. Before halftime, the Cardinals scored another field goal. With each successive attack, the Jets’ approach somehow deteriorated. In total, the Jets missed 20 tackles, according to NextGen Stats, more than any team has missed in a game this season. Murray completed 22 of 24 passes for 266 yards and one touchdown, and ran for two touchdowns.

“I’m going to take a good look at myself and really look inside and see what I could have done better, you know, preparing for this game, because something wasn’t right,” Ulbrich said.

The connection between Aaron Rodgers and Davante Adams failed to save the Jets’ season. (Joe Camporeale / Image Images)

The offense wasn’t much better. The Jets opened the second half by driving to the Cardinals’ 3-yard line before Rodgers threw two incompletions and was sacked on fourth down. Rodgers was shut down the entire game and rarely threw downfield — his longest completion, 15 yards, went to running back Breece Hall. Rodgers was 22 of 35 for 151 yards and no touchdowns, only the second time in his career he was thrown for fewer than 160 yards while attempting 30 or more passes.

It’s also the first time Rodgers has started the season 3-7, and the first time he’s looked this miserable with so many weeks to go.

“Listen, it’s definitely been a lot of emotions this year,” Rodgers said. “I thought that after a big win on Thursday evening, a nice long week, we would come out with a lot of energy and win the game. We didn’t come out with a lot of energy on either side of the ball.”

What did he mean by ‘a lot of emotions’?

“Yeah, I’m not going to do that,” Rodgers said. ‘It seems like this is a loaded answer, but this is not the time or place to comment on it now. At some point I’ll give you a better answer.

The Jets no longer have an answer. They don’t have time anymore.

In the third quarter, trailing by 25, Rodgers was sacked on third down for a loss of nine yards. As he and his teammates left the field, Rodgers veered left while the rest of the offense moved right. He ripped off his helmet, handed it to a Jets employee and replaced it with a white Jets hat. He sat down on the couch and leaned back, irritated, alone. A few feet away, Tyrod Taylor watched film on a tablet with play-caller Todd Downing as Rodgers stared off into space, perhaps wondering how he got here. And what happens next.

“We still have a lot ahead of us,” Rodgers said.

That’s the scary part.

(Top photo: Joe Camporeale / Imagn Images)