It was the most watched Monday Night Football game of all time for a reason. Jets vs Bills. Two teams that were front runners to win their conference. A star studded field, and a packed out Met-Life Stadium with the most tortured fanbase in sports just beaming with hope. Then the Jets savior, Aaron Rodgers, runs out of the tunnel holding an American flag on September 11th and every Jet Fan thought to themselves that moment that this is the start to a Super Bowl script. The game starts and the defense forces a punt right away, we get the ball for the first time. Breece Hall breaks a run off (He’s freaking back) and … turbulence hits out of no where.
I am calling it turbulence for a very specific reason. A flight with turbulence isn’t fun. It puts everyone on the edge of their seat, sometimes it makes you want to puke, and when you think your in the clear, it always finds it’s way back. A flight that hits turbulence however can still reach its destination, it does not just simply go down. Despite all the memes on twitter this team did just beat the Bills without Rodgers. They have a long way to go but they aren’t landing yet.
Overall Performance:
I’m not going to sugar coat it the game was ugly and low scoring but there a lot of positive take aways that the Jets can hang their hats on. The defense looked outstanding. Josh Allen is a freak athlete and he is going to burn you a couple times. Holding him to 1 touchdown, picking him 3 times, and forcing him to fumble is an amazing performance against such an elite offensive talent. The next time we meet them we aren’t going to get that again from Josh Allen. The line backer play was great. C.J. Moseley looked a little hesitant on a couple of plays in the open field but it is only week one. The D-Line was great as expected. Quinnen Williams was everywhere. Sauce Gardener struggled. I saw one stat that Sauce was targeted 5 times and each pass went for a +30 yard gain. This was honestly his worst performance as a Pro (which says a lot about his talent) and I do expect him to bounce back against the Cowboys next week. The big star of the night was of course Jordan White Head and his 3 picks.
Xavier Gipson is proof that the NFL is scripted. The “Hard Knocks Darling” that struggled to make the team scoring on a walk off punt return is the perfect epilogue to Hard Knocks and the pre-season as a whole.
As far as the offense goes the run game and the pass game is night and day. The O-line, for as much as they get shit on, is actually a very good run block unit. Breece Hall and Dalvin Cook were dicing up that defense Monday night. Zach Wilson got the win and give him credit for it. He is stepping up in an offense that is tailor made for Aaron Rodgers. His pick was bad. The only way he is going to fix those is by looking off his passes which we saw him do in training camp.
Rodger’s influence did flash on three specific throws. The first one was the 3rd and long to Lazard that Lazard kind of bobbled. He read that defense perfectly and picked up on Buffalo’s D disguising their coverage. The next was on another 3rd and long to Garrett Wilson where he found him in space and led him back to the ball with a lower pass. A lot of people think that was just a shitty throw but that him putting the ball out of harms way.
Lastly, the touchdown pass was the exact play that Rodgers threw to GW in the preseason. He saw that Wilson was in man to man and he call an audible to Wilson. Throw was meh but luckily Garrett Wilson is a freaking Alien.
New Captain:
Saleh said today in a press conference that this is Zach’s team and when you look at the names of potential options out there, it really is. With that being said the Jets still need a backup QB and these are the top four options out there:
- Jacoby Brissett-Expensive
- Jameis Winston-Expensive (Will throw 50 TDs and 30 picks. But the interviews will be electric)
- Gardener Minshew-I just love this dude
- Colt McCoy-Old but solid career backup. (least expensive)
Holding out hope:
Dallas next week is going to be a fist fight. They’re defense is elite and almost killed Daniel Jones last week. There is no doubt they are going to get to Wilson multiple times. If the D can play at the championship caliber they are, and the run game can get going early then the Jets have a shot. Hackett needs to also not be so predictable with the play calling. Throw the ball on 1st and 2nd every once in a while because if you put Zach in third and long every series this defense is going to eat him alive. This flight is going to bumpy, it going to rough, but it’s not going down yet.
