Mission Impossible
Rex Ryan dubbed the Jets run of road playoff games "Mission: Impossible."
He was right.
The Jets came up just short Sunday night and for the second straight year fell a win short of the Super Bowl.
And I hate to say it, but I would be surprised if the Jets got this far for a third straight year.
The Steelers defense in the first half looked like the defense of a team that was ready to advance to the Super Bowl. The Jets did not.
The Jets offense also did not. And throw in a couple of bad punts - the Jets special teams also did not look like it belonged to a team ready to advance to the Super Bowl.
But in the second half the Jets showed some life and made it exciting. They should have run the ball down 24-10 instead of throwing it from the 2-yard line, but if they convert that fourth down, they never get the safety, and who knows how the Steelers respond with a 24-17 lead getting the ball back on a kickoff instead of the Jets getting the safety. (Goodness knows the Jets couldn't stop the Steelers with the game on the line inside of two minutes - who's to say they could have done it midway through the fourth quarter.)
Mark Sanchez proved his mettle once again, bringing the Jets back. There's more to write about that this week. There's more to write about a lot that happened before the Jets finally ran out of comebacks in this 2010 season.
But it's more about what happened in the end.
In the end it came down to an inability to chase down Ben Roethlisberger on a scramble and a big Steelers third down conversion.
In the end the Jets couldn't come all the way back from down 24-0.
In the end, it feels like another wasted season - another year without a Super Bowl win.
In the end it was an impossible mission.
It feels like that's the way it will always be.
