CINCINNATI – Go ahead and call for Chad Pennington’s job today.
If you think Pennington was the reason the Jets lost to the Bengals 38-31 yesterday, though, you should go back and check on your high school or college diploma and make sure it actually has your name on it.
Pennington didn’t allow the Bengals to score 21 unanswered points in the second half. Pennington didn’t let a journeyman backup running back named Kenny Watson – who was on about as many fantasy-football rosters before yesterday as Roger Vick – rush for a career-high 130 yards and three touchdowns.
What Pennington did do was help lead the Jets to a 23-10 second half lead, the one that the defense agonizingly let bleed out like road kill. After the game, Eric Mangini for the first time this season didn’t publicly endorse Pennington as his starter, saying he was going to evaluate every position on the team. So he might replace Pennington with backup Kellen Clemens this week.
But to go Clemens for Pennington right now sends the wrong message to the rest of the players who’ve been screwing up and causing the team to lose four consecutive games. Though Pennington has not been at his best this season, he still gives the teams its best chance to win right now. He isn’t even close to the worst culprit in this mess the Jets have become.
Their defense, which is healthy and intact and hasn’t suffered even as much as a hangnail, has become a joke. Yesterday was the fourth time in six games the Jets have allowed 28 or more points. They cannot stop the run. They cannot rush the quarterback.
That apparently has been Pennington’s fault, too.
There was even a spaghetti-against-the-wall report that surfaced before yesterday’s game stating, without attributing any sources, that Mangini had told Pennington that he was on “a short leash.”
“I was never told I was going to be on a short leash,” Pennington said. “That doesn’t even sound like Coach Mangini.”
Laveranues Coles, one of the players in the Jets’ locker room who gets it, said, “Don’t put it on Chad. Say all of us stink, not just one guy.”
The fact is, Pennington played about as well as anyone on the Jets’ roster yesterday, completing 20-of-31 passes for 272 yards, 3 TDs and an INT. Oh yes, by the way, he even threw the ball deep successfully, hitting Coles on a 57-yard TD strike.
So, when Mangini goes back to the tapes, watches yesterday’s game and decides on what changes he wants to make, to bench Pennington based on yesterday’s performance would be wrong. It would send the wrong message.
Asked directly if Pennington would remain the starter, Mangini said, “I’m going to take a look at the film and assess every situation. I’m going to look at the whole roster, from top to bottom. There’s plenty of blame to go around.”
There certainly is, and that’s why it shouldn’t all be pinned on Pennington, which is exactly what’ll be the case if Mangini benches him now.