Yes, it’s nice to have Aaron Rodgers on the team, and if you’d forgotten, Robert Saleh would soon remind you, no less than a half-dozen times, that “we feel like we can score every time we touch the ball.” And while that remains more theory than reality: sure, it’s nice to have Rodgers on your side.
But Rodgers wasn’t going to be able to help the Jets now.
The Tennessee Titans then had to score a field goal at the Jets’ 10-yard line. There were 90 seconds left, Jets 24, Titans 17. Will Levis, a traveling fan wearing shoulder pads and a helmet most of the time, had just come out of a sack and run 13 yards to set them up. There were 65,509 Nashville residents on their feet and screaming at Nissan Stadium.
“This is the time,” Quincy Williams would later say. “This is the time to sell everything you have. You have to take a stand. You have to make plays. That’s the game out there.”
The Jets spent much of the day reeling. They were down 7-0 and probably could have been a lot worse if not for Levis’ generosity. Yet it was Levis who managed to find the one molecule of space that allowed Calvin Ridley to catch a 40-yard TD pass in the third quarter.
“This guy,” Jets coach Robert Saleh said, “can make plays.”
The Jets were desperate. The Titans were desperate. Your season doesn’t end 0-2, but it sure makes things harder. Levis dropped back, got surrounded again, hustled again, took two points. Then he looked for DeAndre Hopkins; maybe Sauce Gardner grabbed Hopkins’ jersey, maybe not. The ball fell incomplete.
Third down now. Thirty-four seconds left. Levis backs up and is swallowed up by a green void. It’s similar to the swarm he escaped a few plays earlier, but this time Will McDonald knocks him to the ground, McDonald’s third sack of the day.
“I have to get rid of this ball,” Levis said sadly later.
Fourth down. One play to win the game, one play to make it 1-1. The crowd was still buzzing. It was pretty clear to everyone that if Levis could find the end zone, Titans coach Brian Callahan would do what Brian Daboll did in this same stadium two years ago when he was looking for his first career victory: go for the double, go for the win.
The Jets wanted it to be a moot point. There are now 23 seconds left. Tennessee has called a timeout.
“I have confidence in our guys over there,” Rodgers said.
There was nothing he could do. Rodgers had been good most of the day, belying his modest numbers (18 of 30, 176 yards) by completing two breathtakingly perfect passes on the winning drive, one to Garrett Wilson and one to Mike Williams. He threw two TD passes, and when he completed his first pass to Braelon Allen, it was the oldest player in the NFL connecting with the youngest.
He threw another one to Breece Hall. He led that final drive, putting the Jets in position to make it 1-1.
But he was wearing a baseball cap now. There was no helping him. Levis took over. The Jets came, rushed him, pressed him. Levis threw. The ball fell to the ground safely. No flags littered the grass. It was over. The Jets had held on. They had won. They had come here alone, in last place in the AFC East, and had gone home tied for second.
The Patriots are next up. Thursday night. Home opener. End of three games in 11 days, which is pretty grueling whether you’re 40 years and 288 days old (like Rodgers) or 20 years and 239 days old (like Allen). Still, 1-1 feels a lot better than 0-2.
“The heart of our team,” Saleh said of the Jets’ defense, and specifically the line. “We move like they move.”
The Jets were already smaller up front than they had been in the last two years, and unfortunately, they were about to get even smaller when the engine of that engine, Jermaine Johnson, went down with what appeared to be an Achilles issue. Bad luck for the Jets, but even tougher luck for Johnson.
And a tough one for Saleh. On Thursday, the Jets begin the first day of the rest of their lives, facing the Pats without their perennial tormentor, Bill Belichick. The opportunity still exists for a quick start, one that could still get them to 4-1 before the Bills game in a few weeks. But they couldn’t have gotten to 4-1 without first getting to 1-1. Deal done.
It wasn’t a perfect day in sunny Tennessee, not by any means. It didn’t have to be. In this case, a good day is more than enough.
