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On ESPN’s pregame show, Rex Ryan told a story we covered in the Sept. 5 MMQB—one that explained how the outgrowth of Ryan ripping Jets coach Robert Saleh was a conversation between the two that led to material changes in the team’s roster. Ryan explained to Saleh the value he got in bringing program guys such as Bart Scott and Jim Leonhard with him from the Ravens to the Jets and suggested the Jets coach do the same in Year 2.
Saleh took Ryan’s words to heart, and imported Kwon Alexander, Laken Tomlinson and D.J. Reed, who were with him in San Francisco.
The result, as the guys there see it now, is a Jets team that’s more bonded now than in recent memory.And those ties, the players think, along with the experience many of those players have from winning programs, are starting to change the face of a team that carries the longest playoff drought in the NFL.
So you want to know how Jets 27, Packers 10 happens? It starts right there.
“You can feel the confidence,” linebacker C.J. Mosley told me postgame. “All game, especially, and obviously on defense, I know the only thing we would talk about is executing our drive. When we get back on the field, let’s make sure we execute— And I feel like that’s what we did the majority of the day. We didn’t worry about the score; we didn’t worry about who was in or who was going to do what. Once we saw a formation, we knew what they wanted to do and we executed.”
They did to the point where an interesting quarterback battle in this one pitting an all-time-great Aaron Rodgers against a promising, improving former top-five pick Zach Wilson was rendered, more or less, irrelevant.
Wilson threw for just 110 yards on 10-of-18 passing without a touchdown. Rodgers, on the other hand, threw for more than double that (246), and didn’t throw a pick, with three different Packers recording at least three catches. The problem, for the hosts, was that the Jets won just about everywhere else.
They outrushed the Packers nearly three times over (179–60) behind Breece Hall, part of a bumper crop of rookies. They limited receivers Allen Lazard and Romeo Doubs to the point where both caught less than half the balls thrown their way. Rodgers was sacked four times and fumbled twice (losing one of them).
And a lot of being able to cross the Packers up was a result of the relationships between the staffs—Jets coach Robert Saleh was in Packers coach Matt LaFleur’s wedding (and vice versa), and LaFleur’s little brother, Mike, is Saleh’s offensive coordinator.
“With the game plan we had, we knew everybody just had to do their job,” Mosley says. “We know when we went in Cover 1, then we had to align our corners and our DBs, and we knew our D-line was going to have to get back there and cause pressure. And when we were in zone, we know Aaron likes to get the ball across the middle, get it to his backs and let them make plays. I felt like when they did get the ball, we were there. They didn’t get a lot of yards after catch and obviously with the run game, I feel like we did a really good job with that.”
The really wild thing is after Micheal Clemons blocked a Pat O’Donnell punt in the third quarter, and Will Parks returned it 39 yards for a touchdown to give the Jets a 17–3 lead, the visitors had a counterpunch for everything the Packers threw at them. After Parks’s touchdown, Rodgers took the Packers 75 yards in six plays to make it 17–10, and the Jets turned right around and went 55 yards in six plays, with Hall scoring from 34 yards out to answer. The Packers drove again, but the Jets tightened up on the fringe of field goal range.
This doesn’t feel like the old Jets, at this point, with a three-game winning streak, the rookie class shining, and the team a game out of first. Alone in second place in the AFC East, it’s fair to ask whether the Jets might be the division’s second-best team? We’ll find out soon with three consecutive AFC East games (two against the Patriots, one against Buffalo) coming after next Sunday’s game in Denver.
For now, the good news is the Jets seem ready for all that—and, as much as anything, it’s because they have players who have been through it before.
“I don’t take any of the time that I’ve been with the Jets for granted, because wins are hard to come by, no matter who you play for,” says Mosley, a former Raven. “But I just hope that every time we win these type of games, whether we’re home or away, that we’ll reflect on what it took to get to where we are now. The work, the time we had to put in, each player individually working on whatever little things helped him get better for that week, for each other.
“And I just really feel that the way we just go out and work every day, it’s not caring about who the opponent is, not caring about if it’s America’s Game, not worried about none of that. We’re just going to go out here, execute and show what type of football team we are.”
To this point, we can say it looks like a much better one.
