Painful Victory

Edition #475

Good morning ☕

What a rollercoaster of emotion. It's days like today where I truly feel this franchise is cursed. After a thrilling win, capped by an unbelievable moment for Xavier Gipson, the reality hits.

The Jets fear that Aaron Rodgers has ruptured his Achilles. That would be a season-ending injury. Just a handful of plays into the season, the prized asset is down. Not only is that a season-ending injury, but potentially career-ending.

Yesterday I tweeted the following

““You must understand that there is more than one path to the top of the mountain”

― Miyamoto Musashi

Whatever happens tonight with the Jets, win or lose...it's the start of the journey, not the end.”

Well, that journey just got a lot more difficult and that mountain peak looks further away this morning than it did 24 hours ago, even after the victory.

If you want to look at any positives and I mean any, the Jets won't be sending a first-round pick to the Packers for Rodgers as he won't hit that 70% threshold in terms of snaps played this year.

As you know I'm currently on vacation, but wanted to get a few thoughts out, and I'm going to start with some positives…I think we all need that this morning.

🖐️ I'm not sure what Jordan Whitehead had for breakfast yesterday but hopefully he has more of it. His single-season high for interceptions was 2, last night he had 3. That's an incredible effort and while a couple were Josh Allen throwing them up, the third and final one was an outstanding read and jump.

🏈 Garrett Wilson thanked his mum for taking him to gymnastics as a kid after his ridiculous one-handed touchdown. I'm still not 💯% sure how he caught that, but he's going to need to continue being special if the Jets want any chance. According to Next Gen stats, that throw had a completion probability of 34.5%.

💨 It's hard not to feel good for Breece Hall this morning. He didn't get that TD, but gaining 127 yards with 81 one of them above expected is one hell of a way to reintroduce yourself. He'll get better and better, stronger and stronger as the season goes on.

✖️ What a moment for Gipson. I'm going to use Next Gen again here. According to them, he had a 0.8% chance of scoring when he fielded the ball, which is based on everything from how often punts are returned for TDs, field position, placement of defenders etc. He did it anyway. The UDFA called game and gave the Jets a good feeling, at least for now.

👏 The defense as a whole was outstanding tonight. Bills will put a lot of points on the board this year, but keeping them to under 20 again and forcing Allen into four turnovers is elite level. Far too many players to name but Quincy had a fine game, Jordan obviously, the corners. The guys up front forced Allen off his mark, Quinton Jefferson in particular was hard to block. Tons of positives from that performance.

2️⃣ I'm going to give Wilson his props here as well. Nobody expected him to be in there and while he made a bad decision on the throw, he still managed to keep the Jets in touch against a very good defence who were in the backfield all night. He gave Garrett a shot on that TD and that's all he needed. Saleh confirmed he'd be the guy going forward.

🤯 Also think you have to mention the mental fortitude of the team. To lose Rodgers straight away, to lose your leader and the man who was going to guide you back to the promised land just a handful of snaps into the game, yet still win against a divisional opponent who most are tipping to be in the AFC Championship game, well that's notable.

Let's talk about some of the negatives, and obviously, there is only one place to start.

🤕 When teams come out and say they fear *insert injury here*, 9.99/10 that's the injury. So when Saleh confirmed the Jets fear Rodgers has ruptured his Achilles, chances are he has. This means Zach Wilson is now the Jets starting QB the rest of the way, starting in Dallas who just made Daniel Jones look like Tim Tebow.

😬 During the pre-season we all said the same thing. The offensive line has the potential to unravel our season. Well, that fear became a reality 4 plays into the game. Duane Brown was bad tonight, really bad. He looked every part an ageing veteran who missed the entire pre-season. We can blame Duane Brown, but part of the blame needs to be portioned to the Jets management team who must have known the risks entering the way with Brown there. Becton didn't look too bad on the right side, but I need to watch the game back as there seemed to be a fair amount of pressure coming off the edges all night.

👨‍🍳 Dalvin Cook looked pretty slow to me tonight. Saw some comments online saying the Jets offensive line was opening holes in the run game all night and I didn't see that. 64% of Breece’s yards came above expected, meaning it was on Breece. Cook averaged 2.5 yards a carry, even if he's slowed down…if the line were opening holes all day, he'd have more than that.

Today we can enjoy the victory.

Then we need to start looking forward. What do you do if you're the Jets once Rodgers gets his official diagnosis? Do you roll with Zach? Sign Boyle off the practice squad to be #2?

Is this the start of a Zach Wilson comeback story with the Jets? What a narrative that would be…if Zach took the Jets to the playoffs.

Do you go hunting for another veteran?

Some people are suggesting either Matt Ryan or Joe Flacco, which to me is a ridiculous idea. Both are statues, and both will get killed behind our offensive line.

Considering you've gone all in, do you test the waters with the Vikings and Kirk Cousins? The Rams with Matthew Stafford?

This defense will keep the Jets in every game and I'd expect Breece and Dalvin to get significantly more carries than originally planned. But at some point, you need your QB to make some plays.

We will analyse the QB options at some point this week.