Victory!

Edition #224

Good morning! 🙌

Last week the sky was falling…Garrett Wilson picked that up and took it to the house. The Jets are 1-1, riding their highly touted rookie class to an improbable victory over the Cleveland Browns.

I don't even know where to start, so let's just get straight into it and before we get into the action I'm going to share a few stats and a couple of quotes.

💥 Corey Davis on his 66-yard TD. “It was a good route, but I didn't think it was that damn good”

💥 Garrett Wilson on how the Jets came back from the deficit “We kept our feet on their neck and just tried to keep going”

💥 The Jets snapped their 13-game losing streak in September with the win over Cleveland, which was their first win in September since Sam Darnold's debut in 2018.

💥 This win was only the third win since 2000 after trailing by 13 or more points in the 4th quarter. The other two being against the Dolphins in the Monday Night Miracle (2000) and in Dallas against the Cowboys (2011)

💥 Joe Flacco became the first Jets QB with 300 passing yards and 4 passing touchdowns since Vinny Testaverde did it against Miami in the Monday Night Miracle.

💥 Since week 9 of 2001 teams had lost 2,229 consecutive games when trailing by at least 13 points in the final 2 minutes…until the Jets yesterday.

💥 The Jets, Giants, Mets, and Yankees all won yesterday, that's the first time all four teams have won on the same day since 2009. NY bounce-back year is in session.

💥 Going to finish this segment with some wise words from Micheal Carter on staying confident after week one “Y'all take one loss way too seriously”

The odds for a Jets victory were set at 0.01% with them trailing by 13 points with 95 seconds to go…but we watch football for the unpredictability. So how the hell did the Jets turn that 0.01% into 100% by the time Ashtyn Davis took a slide after a game-sealing interception? Let's take a look.

The first thing to note is that Nick Chubb made a huge error, his third touchdown with 1:55 left in the game may have delighted fantasy owners, but it cost the Browns the win, spoiling their chance to go 2-0 for the first time since 1993. Back then Bill Belichick was the head coach and Jurassic Park was #1 at the box office.

Had Chubb just gone down in-bounds the Browns could have run the clock out with the Jets having 0 timeouts remaining, but even with that error you’d expect the Cleveland defense to hold a 13-point lead with 95 seconds to go…with the Jets having 0 timeouts.

DJ Reed actually missed the tackle on Chubb for that touchdown, which was unusual on the day considering how good Reed was with his open field tackling, Saleh later said "I've never been so happy for a missed tackle in my life, That was our only chance."

Browns head coach Stefanski took the blame saying "That is a scenario where that is on me to communicate that to the huddle, We've done that before. Having said that, we need to close that game out."

1:32 to go in the game and the Jets are down 13. Joe gets some nice protection and the Browns forget they're still in a game. In the preview newsletter, I mentioned that Robby Anderson had exploited a miscommunication in the Browns secondary last week for a big touchdown and that when you have younger players there is a tendency for mistakes. Corey ran a nice route and nobody knew the assignment, Jets cut the deficit to just 6 points. The problem is there is only 1:22 left in the game and you have no timeouts.

Onside kick time.

Braden Mann who came under fire last week due to an underwhelming season debut is in and he executes the onside kick to perfection. Will Parks gets to it quickly and special teams captain Justin Hardee comes up with the ball. Hardee had a tough year last year but has started the 2022 season in good form on specials. I can't remember the last time the Jets converted a big onside kick in a tight game that led to a win. If you can, pop that in the comments.

"The onsides kick, with the new rules, have been so rare," Saleh said. "Once that happened, there was no doubt we were scoring once we got the ball."

The Jets then slowly marched down the field and with 25 seconds on the clock, Joe Flacco found Wilson over the middle with an absolute dime, that ball gets on Wilson in a hurry but there was no chance he was dropping that. He said he wanted a chance to make up for his 3rd down drop earlier in the game, and he made up for it and some.

If you read this newsletter regularly you'll know I'm no Ashtyn Davis fan, but he comes up big here playing a single high free roaming safety role. It almost seems as though his one job is to read the eyes of the QB and flow to the ball, it's a bad throw by Brissett but he's just trying to make a play and get Case York into FG range, and overall he played well. Today it wasn't enough.

JETS WIN BABY!

WE CELEBRATE 🥳

Saleh trotted across midfield with a huge smile on his face before taking a more business approach for the handshake with Kevin Stefanski, Myles Garrett was critical of the boos that rained down on the Browns as they left the field dejected; "The more disappointing thing was the booing at the end. It was not the most optimal ending to have."

We by no means played a perfect game but I'm not going to waste any space talking about the negatives, I'm not here for that and immature you're not either. So before we get into some stars of the game, I wanted to share two more plays.

First of all let's take a look at Wilson's first TD working against Emerson, the feet off the line, the head movement, and then the separation is textbook. You don't get much better than that and Wilson has already known a natural ability to create separation at every level of the field.

The second play comes from another rookie and it's Breece Hall taking his first visit to the end zone. Hall is a complete back and his receiving ability is underappreciated outside of the Jets organization. This isn't a tough catch, but sometimes when you have a lot of time as a rookie you think too much and mistakes happen. Not with Breece.

It's that time to hand out some stars 🌟 - Here are some players who stood out.

🌟 GARRETT WILSON

This was Garrett Wilson putting the league on notice, he is the best offensive weapon on this team. When you stack up a 100+ yard catch, 2 touchdown performance, in only your 2nd game as a pro, that's special. I also loved the way he came back after dropping that key 3rd down pass, being able to put that to the back of your mind and come out and perform like he did was exceptional.

He has the acceleration and speed to beat people off the line, and the feet and head fake to get himself open. He's also more physical than he looks and his routes are crisp. He's going to be a problem in this league for a very long time.

🌟 BREECE HALL

7 attempts for 50 yards (7.1 average) and one reception for 10 yards and a touchdown. Considering he only had 8 touches he performed to a high standard and it was good to see him get into the end zone. How the Jets manage the workload of Carter/Breece will be something to watch this season, Carter was the better back in week one and Breece the better back in week two, and I don't think either has got in rhythm yet. It was a good bounce back for Hall after the fumble last week.

🌟 BRADEN MANN

I've been as critical of Mann as anyone, but he really showed up for the Jets yesterday. He had two punts downed inside the 20, averages close to 50 yards per punt, converted a 4th down with a perfect throw to Jeff Smith, and executed a perfect onside kick. The Browns punter was good, but Braden Mann was better. Considering he'd been struggling all week with a back injury and the pressure was mounting on Joe to replace him, this is a big-time performance and it's bought Braden a little bit of time.

🌟 MAX MITCHELL

All the stats won't be available until later today but I can't express how impressed I've been with Mitchell, especially as he's faced two good lines to start his NFL career. The Jets had absolutely no plans to start Max in year one, they saw 2022 as a bit of a redshirt year for him, but injuries forced their hand.

Yesterday wasn't perfect, I think he was responsible for the strip sack by Clowney, but as good as the Browns are and as static as Joe is - Cleveland only managed 2 sacks and that's notable considering what we saw last week. He also fell on the Conklin fumble and recovered the ball for the Jets.

🌟 JOE FLACCO

A lot of people were calling for Mike White to replace Joe this week and the veteran responded in the best way possible. 300+ passing yards and 4 touchdowns by a Jets QB is a very unfamiliar sight but Joe used all his veteran know-how to move the Jets down the field on multiple occasions. He had more than one throw where he got rid of the ball quickly after identifying the blitz, it may not have been the best play but those little 6-7 yard pickups against the blitz are key to keeping the offense on the field. He's obviously got a connection with Wilson which is evident by 15 targets, and while I'd like him to spread the ball around a little more (Moore had 6 targets) he did a fine job throughout. The Jets gave him better protection and he pushed the ball downfield more. I've got a lot of time for this performance.

🌟 GREG ZUERLEIN

He may have only had one field goal attempt, but he knocked through a 57-yarder and made all four extra points. Not a huge body of work, but considering his performance last week I think this is notable. Boyer said that he trusted Greg to have a bounce back and that's what he did. Just like the Jets need to stack wins, our special team’s guys need to stack performances.

Coming on tomorrow’s newsletter: All the stats from the victory, make sure you’re subscribed to be the first to receive it.