After Zach Wilson inexplicably took a sack on fourth and a Walmart parking lot — shoutout to Mark Sanchez for that incredible descriptor — I gathered my belongings and headed out of MetLife Stadium. Just like everyone else, I thought the game was over.
After traveling over 700 miles to attend Sunday’s game, I didn’t need to watch the Giants seal what would be one of the worst losses of the Robert Saleh and Joe Douglas era. I was visibly disgusted, questioning how the Jets could start Zach Wilson again, with his tendency to take backbreaking sacks and his lack of an internal clock.
But, I was soon to find out that Graham Gano missed a 35-yard field goal with 24 seconds left. Gano’s second miss of the day — he missed a 47-yarder in the first quarter — gave the Jets life. And that’s all they needed to steal Sunday’s game.
24 seconds? Not a problem for Wilson, who despite his continued uneven showings seems to have a knack for the moment. Wilson now leads the 2021 NFL quarterback draft class with six career fourth-quarter comebacks. That’s ahead of Trevor Lawrence (5), Justin Fields (2), and Mac Jones (2).
No matter how bad he looks at the time, you have to give the young man credit for his resilience. He’s growing up before our eyes, even if it didn’t look like it in person. And mind you, I thought he was terrible on Sunday. But re-watching the game, you can see that he’s finally starting to get it, and finally growing up before our very eyes.
More on that in a moment.
Admittedly, I watched Greg Zuerlein sink the game-winning 33-yard field goal from the back seat of my rental car. I felt some regret from leaving early, but that feeling was dwarfed by relief that the Jets won this game — one they had to have.
Whenever that In the Hunt graphic hits sometime next month, nobody associated with the Jets is going to care how Sunday’s win came. They did the improbable on Sunday and absolutely deserved to lose a game in which the opposing team had minus-nine yards net passing. But it doesn’t matter. They won. You burn the tape and move on to next week.
Against all odds, Saleh’s squad continues to stack up wins. That’s three in a row for an Aaron Rodgers-less team. And quite frankly, there should be four, if not for that ref show during Sunday Night Football against Kansas City. But that’s a separate argument for a separate day.
Relatively speaking, it doesn’t matter how the Jets stack up these wins, if they’re going to continue to do so. But Sunday’s win was ugly and they can’t have more games like that — at least from an offensive standpoint — if they have any legitimate playoff aspirations.
Nathaniel Hackett self-scouted during the Bye Week, that his offense — which entered Week 8 with the worst third-down and red zone offense in the league — needed to improve in those two areas. The Jets were 2-of-15 on third down in Sunday’s win; in the first 59 minutes, Gang Green ran one play in Giants’ territory.
A three-yard loss from the Giants 49-yard line.
And yet, aided by two Wilson throws of 29 yards to Garrett Wilson and Allen Lazard, the Jets were able to get themselves in a position to tie, and eventually win Sunday’s game.
Wilson wasn’t anything special on Sunday, completing 17-of-36 passes (47.2 percent) for 240 yards and a touchdown. He also fumbled twice — one a strip sack, the other a muffled exchange with his third center of the game, Xavier Newman-Johnson, a practice squad call-up at guard, who filled in at center after Connor McGovern (knee) and Wes Schweitzer (calf) went down with injuries in the second quarter.
Against a cast of musical chairs at center, Dexter Lawerence tied the record (15) for most pressure in a single game by an interior defender. In total, the Giants had over 22 total pressures of Wilson, who was running for his life most of the afternoon. Considering those conditions, as well as the torrential downpour and numerous drops from his wide receivers, it’s hard to fault him for Sunday’s performance, but the Jets do need him to stop taking backbreaking sacks.
Hackett, Wilson, and New York’s offensive line all have to play better. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to diagnose that issue. And even if the team’s offense is historically bad, they have and will find ways to be competitive and beat good teams. But at the end of the day, this isn’t a sustainable strategy. The Jets need more out of their offense, and good things seem to happen when they get the ball in the hands of their playmakers (Breece Hall and Garrett Wilson).
On the defensive side of the football, the Jets have the deepest defensive line in the league. And it could be argued that they have the best linebacker (C.J. Mosley and Quincy Williams) and cornerback (Sauce Gardner and DJ Reed) tandems in the NFL.
This isn’t the Same Old Jets.
I thought to myself, as I left MetLife Stadium on Sunday, that this indeed was the Same Old Jets. But the Same Old Jets don’t win Sunday’s game. It was ugly. It was gross. It was disgusting. But it was a beautiful disaster. The Jets have been on the other end of these losses time and time again. That’s why, despite the circumstances, Sunday’s win was all the more sweeter.
It doesn’t matter how the Jets get these wins. If they keep winning, Sunday will be a moot point. You play to win the game; isn’t that right, Herm?
So, as I walked back to the car during overtime on Sunday, there was a sudden realization that even for all their faults, this isn’t the Same Old Jets. And we should treat them, no matter how ugly they played on Sunday, as such.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.