Greg Zuerlein was as accountable and brutally honest as he could be after missing two crucial short field goals in Monday night’s 23-20 Jets loss to the Bills at MetLife Stadium.
Unfortunately for the 2-4 Jets, accountability and honesty doesn’t win you games.
And Zuerlein, the Jets kicker for the past two-plus seasons, has now cost the team two potential victories in six games this season.
In Week 2, he missed a 50-yard field goal in the waning seconds of a 10-9 loss to the Broncos.
On Monday night, in a game that would have vaulted the Jets into first place in the AFC East with a win, Zuerlein hit the left upright on a 32-yard attempt with 55 seconds remaining in the third quarter with the game tied at 20-20 and a 43-yarder midway through the fourth with it still knotted at 20-20.
Afterward, he made the stunning admission that he’s mired in a slump that includes practice, not just the games.
“I’m just not kicking the ball,” Zuerlein said. “I wouldn’t say the [windy] conditions played into it. It’s just me not kicking the ball the proper way, and results showed for themselves. Not just this game, but previous games [Denver] as well. These guys [teammates] deserve better, and I can do better. I just need to do it.’’
Zuerlein was 30-for-37 on field goals in his first season with the Jets, in 2022, good for 81.1 percent. Last season, he was 35-for-38, 92.1 percent.
This season, he’s an alarming 6-for-10 for 60 percent, and 60-percent kickers aren’t employed for very long, even though Jets interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich preached after the loss that he still believes in Zuerlein.
“I’m not concerned with Greg,’’ Ulbrich said. “I know the track record of this man, and he’s going to catch his rhythm here and … in this season, he’s going to win games for us. I know that, 100-percent.’’
Perhaps the most disturbing element to listening to Zuerlein speak after the game is that he indicated that he’s slumping in practice, too.
“It’s easy to tell I’m not hitting the ball the way I know how,” he said. “I’m preparing to the best of my abilities, and the results haven’t come yet. Hopefully, that’ll turn and go from there.”
Like a golfer who has the hooks and hits everything left, Zuerlein’s misses have been consistently left.
“That’s kind of the ball I’ve been hitting,” he said. “In general, I’m just not hitting the ball the proper way, the way I know how. Today, it came to bite us. I’m trying various things to get that fixed. Every day in practice, I go out there [trying] to eliminate those … those bad kicks, because they’re costing us.”
Zuerlein, in his 13th NFL season and with his fourth team, said this is not the first time he’s been mired in a funk like this.
“I’ve been through ups and downs and hell and back many, many times, and right now it’s not good,” he said. “It’s not good enough, because these guys in this locker room deserve to win. That bothers you as a player, because you see all the hard work they put in, and I’m not holding up my end of the bargain. That’s on me.”
