The game-winning drive by the Seahawks on Sunday featured four penalties on the Jets defense. Three of them came on fourth downs with two of them giving Seattle first downs.
Jets coach Jeff Ulbrich went over each penalty Monday.
First, the Jets were called for having 12 men on the field when the Seahawks were facing a fourth-and-6.
The Jets initially thought the Seahawks were punting, but Seattle punter Michael Dickson was dealing with an injury and Seattle went for it. The Jets never communicated that to punt returner Xavier Gipson, who remained on the field with the defense and the penalty was called.
“There was a moment there where we thought we had seen the special team coordinator signal on the sideline there, their punt stuff,” Ulbrich said, “and I was aware of the punter being nicked and struggling there, and he was uncertain to finish, but it’s just got to get communicated across the board. Typically when you’re subbing, you’re subbing the guys near the ball and the line of scrimmage, and it was one of those ones that got away from us, and it’s totally unacceptable that [Gipson] was back there, obviously as the returner, and we missed it, can’t happen. It was a critical error, in a critical moment of the game.”
That gave the Seahawks a fourth-and-1 and then Qwan’tez Stiggers was called for pass interference, giving them a first down.
“We’ve just got to keep our hands down and stay cleaner in those moments which can be very challenging, especially at the top of the route like that, but we can play it better,” Ulbrich said.
The Seahawks faced another fourth-and-1 and the Jets stopped them but defensive tackle Solomon Thomas was called for a horse-collar tackle.
“The horse collar to me, that’s an aggressive penalty sometimes just in a scrum like that, things like that happen,” Ulbrich said. “The fact that he didn’t get tackled by the horse collar itself and it was the minute he identified he had that part of his jersey, he let it go. That’s an aggressive penalty.”
Finally, Will McDonald was called for offsides and moved the ball up five yards for the Seahawks, who scored on the next play.
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“The pre-snap stuff, totally unacceptable. We had the offsides, which was real,” Ulbrich said. “So a couple in there that were aggressive that, we’re always going to be able to live with and there’s a couple in there that are totally unacceptable.”
The Jets signed RB Kene Nwangwu to the active roster off the practice squad on Monday. Nwangwu returned a kickoff 99 yards on Sunday after being elevated from the practice squad and also had a forced fumble. The Jets cut RB Israel Abanikanda to make room on the roster. Abanikanda was a fifth-round pick in 2023 by the team but has been inactive for every game this season. … Ulbrich had no updates on injured players CB Sauce Gardner (hamstring) or RT Morgan Moses (shoulder).
