FOURTH AND STRONG

Jets finally fight to finish, knock out Chiefs to keep slim playoff hopes alive

The Jets beat the Chiefs on Sunday, but their bigger victory may have been over their own fourthquarter mental demons.

After blowing fourth-quarter leads in three of their past four losses, the Jets did not let it happen against the Chiefs at MetLife Stadium, holding on for a 38-31 win that moves their record to 5-7 and keeps their slim playoff hopes alive.

“It’s big to win one,” Jets coach Todd Bowles said. “It gives you a lot of confidence. You can breathe a sigh of relief before you move onto the next week. To come out with one of these finally is refreshing.”

The Jets offense controlled the game — putting up a whopping 42 minutes, 49 seconds in time of possession to the Chiefs’ 17:11. But the game still was close late thanks to the Chiefs’ big-play ability.

Chandler Catanzaro’s third field goal of the second half gave the Jets a 30-24 lead early in the fourth quarter. The Chiefs responded with a 40-yard touchdown pass from Alex Smith to Tyreek Hill, who had earlier scored on a 79-yarder, to take a 31-30 lead with 9:13 left in the game. It was Hill’s second long touchdown of the half.

It looked like the Jets might let another game slip away, but Josh McCown and the offense refused to let it happen.

McCown gathered the offense and said, “Let’s go.” Then he led it on a 14-play, 75-yard drive that was aided by some terrible Kansas City penalties. It finished with McCown sneaking into the end zone from the 1. The Jets converted the two-point conversion, again aided by Chiefs penalties, to make it 38-31.

“This is what we’ve been kind of building towards all year,” McCown said. “You guys talk about practice, we put a lot of emphasis on the things in practice, but you can’t — no matter what you want to do, like situations you want to create — you can’t create this exact moment in practice. It’s learned in-game. For us, it was like, ‘We have a moment constructed for us right here where we can take another step.’ It was just like, ‘Hey, let’s stand up and do it. Let’s go do it.’ And let’s not talk about how we were close, and how we almost made that play. It was great. Everybody’s attitude was positive in the huddle and upbeat. There was a belief there that, ‘ You know what? This is the time we’re going to get over the hump.’ It was great.”

McCown had a huge day. The 38-year-old continues to defy expectations. He f inished the game 26-of-36 passing for 331 yards, with one passing touchdown and two rushing touchdowns.

“Josh McCown played his ass off today,” Jets linebacker Jordan Jenkins said.

The Jets offense put up 488 total yards, their highest total this year. The 38 points were the most the Jets have scored in two years. Wide receivers Jermaine Kearse (nine catches, 157 yards) and Robby Anderson (eight catches, 107 yards) had their second straight huge week. The Jets were particularly strong on third down, converting 13-of-20.

After the Jets scored the goahead touchdown, the defense had to come up with one stop. It was something they struggled with all day. Kansas City scored four touchdowns of 20 yards or more. On the final drive, Smith found Hill for a 40-yard pass to the Jets’ 23, but then the Jets stopped them on four straight plays to seal the win.

The Jets spent the week talking about finishing in the fourth quarter after last week’s collapse against the Panthers. Coaches had periods in practice that were devoted to being the “fourth quarter.” Players and coaches held up four fingers and shouted “fourth quarter” trying to get the team over that mental hump. It worked on Sunday.

“We made a big emphasis this week on just finishing games, we had a couple of games that we just kind of let go in the fourth quarter,” Kearse said. “We said enough is enough. I think we did a great job just going out there and competing all the way through the game.’’

On Sunday, it looked like the start and not the finish would be the Jets’ problem. Tight end Travis Kelce scored touchdowns of 22 and 36 yards on the Chiefs’ first two possessions to give them a 14-0 lead not even five minutes into the game.

“We just had to calm down,” Jenkins said. “After we were down 14 points, we just looked at each other and said look, just calm down, do our [stuff ] and come out on top. There’s nine minutes left in the first quarter. We knew we had a lot of ball left. Take it one play at a time and we’ll come out on top.”

Kelce also had a 32-yard catch on the first series. But after those three first-quarter catches, he did not have another catch until the final drive. Hill also gave the Jets headaches, finishing with 185 yards and two scores on six catches.

The win keeps the Jets alive in the AFC wild-card race. They are two games behind the Ravens with four to play. The Jets don’t see why they can’t make it.

“You either believe that we can do that or you’ve got to get out of the way,” Forte said, “because everybody else believes.”