Jets Finally Put a Game Away

Edition #763

☀️ Good morning! ☕

Aaron Rodgers and Davante Adams turned back the clock yesterday, and it only took facing Mac Jones and the lowly Jaguars for them to do it.

The Jets took a lead in the 4th quarter and they managed to keep it, which is a rarity this season. Rodgers has now thrown 6 touchdowns to 1 interception over his last three games, although he completed just 53% of his passes against Jacksonville.

Personally, I enjoyed seeing some of those young guys walk off the field with a smile on their face. Losing is tough, it takes a toll. While the win means very little in the grand scheme of things with the Jets already eliminated from the playoffs, for some of those young players it’s like receiving a blast of air when you’re suffocating.

With how things went yesterday the Jets saw their draft pick remain the same despite the win, if the season were to end today then the Jets would pick 8th overall. Every single team above them in the draft order also lost, so had they lost yesterday they’d be picking 7th instead of 8th, as they’d leap the Jaguars.

There’s a big debate about whether it’s better to win or lose, I can understand both sides. But in a year where we’re likely not going to be in position to pick a top QB anyway, as long as we’re picking in the top half of the draft our scouting department should be able to identify a game-changing talent.

The Jets also have the Dolphins, Bills and Rams left on the schedule. I’d chalk those Rams and Bills games up to guaranteed losses and the Dolphins game is a coin flip. So it’s very likely the Jets are going to be picking inside the top 10 at the end of the year, despite the victory yesterday. As a fan…it sure feels better to be waking up on a Monday with a win.

Before we get to the game, let’s just discuss what was perhaps the most surprising news of the season that broke at the weekend.

Before becoming the new North Carolina Tar Head Coach, Bill Belichick reportedly contacted the Jets to express his interest in the vacant head coach position.

That’s right. The man who walked out on the Jets with a hand written scrawl, who got caught by the league cheating by filming the Jets practice, who has been openly critical of Woody Johnson and the way the Jets are run…called to say he was interested.

Maybe it appealed to his ego. Maybe it was all a ploy to humiliate the Jets one last time. Get Woody to beg him to return, then change his mind the last minute and leave us in the lurch. I really wouldn’t put it past Bill.

His open contempt towards the Jets would be hard to forgive. I think for many fans hiring him would have been the last straw, despite his success in New England. He left the Jets because he didn’t want to work for Woody.

Fortunately this story stopped as quickly as it started.

There were no formal discussions with the Jets about that position and Belichick is now the head coach of North Carolina.

Adam Schefter reported this weekend that the Jets had finalised plans to interview two people for the vacant General Manager position.

He did go on to explain that this is going to be an exhaustive process with the Jets to confirm the interviews only once they’re completed. No hire is close to being made considering this process has just started.

The two names that were confirmed are guys we haven’t looked at yet. Although we’ll be doing that later this week, so keep your eyes peeled for those.

The first name on that list is former Tennessee Titans GM Jon Robinson who’s been out of front offices since being fired by the Titans after the 2022 season. He was responsible for drafting Derrick Henry and AJ Brown and started his executive life as a scout in New England. He was responsible for the Titans making the playoffs in 2017 for the first time since 2008, a very interesting name.

The second name on the list was current ESPN employee Louis Riddick who works as an analyst and interviewed for the Pittsburgh Steelers GM job back in 2022 and the New York Giants GM job in 2017. I know you see ESPN analyst and the immediate thought is what the hell are they doing. But Riddick is a highly respected name in the game. He was a scout in Washington before being promoted to Director of pro personnel, before joining that Eagles front office where he served as both a scout and Director of pro personnel. He hasn’t been in an NFL front office since 2013, but he’s obviously stayed close to the game.

As neither are hired by current NFL teams they are free to interview before the 2024 regular season is concluded, which is likely why they’re the first two names to be linked with the opening. The Jets will likely conduct 10 or so interviews for this position, and these are just the first two up to bat.

For long periods of that game yesterday the Jets looked as though they were going to lose to a horrible football team playing their backup QB. We made so many debatable calls defensively like blitzing Sauce in the red-zone which led to Brian Thomas’s TD.

We gave up 25 points to one of the worst offences we’ve seen for a while. Mac Jones threw for nearly 300 yards, Brian Thomas Jr went for over 100 yards and it seemed as though the Jags converted every 3rd down (they were in fact 8/15).

But we found a way to win, in large part because Aaron Rodgers and Davante Adams partied like it’s 2020. That 4th quarter was exactly what we thought we were getting when we traded for Rodgers and Adams. Unfortunately it’s too little too late.

But I’m going to be embracing the win as Jeff Ulbrich said after the game. We’ve experienced too much losing to not embrace this victory.

So while it was far from perfect and I don’t think the Jets have answered any of the questions we have about this team, it’s a win. It’s only our 4th one on the season and it came with some pretty offensive plays. None of them were better than this 71-yard connection to Davante which was absolutely perfect in its execution

Adams would go on to catch nine passes for 198 yards and two touchdown in his best performance as a Jet. 135 of those yards came in the last four minutes or regulation which ESPN confirmed is the most by any receiver in any game this century "You get in a groove sometimes, and it's like your hand is a magnet to the ball," Adams said.

You don’t need me to tell you this season has been one of the most disappointing in Jets history, seeing some of that offensive explosion yesterday further frustrates those of us who believed in this team. Rodgers became the first player in Jets history with three passing touchdowns, no interceptions and at least 45 rushing yards in a game, "Yeah, for sure, it's too little, too late, but it's still special,” said Rodgers who threw 3 touchdowns "It doesn't taint it at all. It doesn't steal any of the joy of it. It doesn't take away any of the fun."

It was a special day for Adams who caught his 100th NFL touchdown: "Historic. Magical," head coach Jeff Ulbrich said. "To get his 100th TD today was -- I feel honored to have seen it, to have been there for it. That was an amazing moment for those two guys. Obviously, [there's been] a lot of ball between them and a lot of touchdowns. For them to get that was special."

According to ESPN, Davante Adams had 198 receiving yards in the second half, the most in a half by a Jets player since the 1970 Merger. That’s the best receiving performance from a Jets receiver since Eric Decker went for 221 yards in 2014.

Stats via StatMuse

There was a lot to celebrate on the offensive side of the ball and one that went a little unnoticed was how good the offensive line was. Rodgers was sacked just once and pressured on only 3 of his 30 drop backs. He said it after the game, he had all day to throw and that really makes a difference.

That wasn’t the only special play yesterday, Sauce Gardner finally broke his interception duck by grabbing a gimme late in the 4th quarter.

This is a play that any professional athlete should make, but when you’ve gone 37 games without an interception, sometimes these ones are the hardest. He had time to think about that one as it floated towards him, and it’s a little bit of payback for Mac Jones hitting Sauce in the crown jewels while he was still a member of the Patriots.

I know some wanted to lose, but it sure feels good to win.