Red-hot Jets cost themselves shot at No. 1 pick
EASTRUTHERFORD» Just as a full moon slowly emerged over a late afternoon MetLife Stadium sky, an unfamiliar graphic flashed incessantly on the corner video boards.
“Jets win!”
But this wasn’t some bizarre episode of “The Twilight Zone,” this was real life. However, the “real” reality is, that while an impressive 23-16 victory over a depleted Cleveland Browns team gives Gang Green their first winning streak of any kind this year, it also clinched the first overall pick in the upcoming NFL Draft for the Jacksonville Jaguars, leaving the Jets with the No. 2 selection.
Adam Gase, who in all likelihood won’t be around to get to make that pick, was left to think about how his team ever got to that spot in the first place given how relatively well they’d played over the last two weeks.
“You’re always going to wonder,” Gase said. “When you lose games, then win a couple in a row, you kind of lock back and say, ‘What if we did this, this, and this different?’ But it is what it is at this point. I’m just glad the guys are still fighting, that they practice the way they do, they prepare the way they do. When they come out on Sunday, they give everything they have. They are putting some good games together.”
Beating the Browns on Sunday, however, capped off an admirable effort, albeit one that saw Cleveland’s flight to New Jersey delayed after four of its wide receivers — Jarvis Landry, Donovan Peoples-Jones, Rashard Higgins and KhaDarel Dodge — and starting linebacker B.J. Goodson
were all placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list. In addition, starting left tackle Jedrick Willis was a late pre-game scratch due to “illness,” leaving Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski severely shorthanded in a game that, with a win, would have clinched a playoff berth.
Instead, it clinched little more than a week of nerves in the crowded AFC playoff picture that’s going to come down to the wire.
“That has nothing to do with the results of this
game,” Stefanski said of missing many key players in a post-game Zoom with reporters. “We got beat. We had plenty of guys. We had all of the guys we needed, and we did not get it done… credit to the Jets. They beat us. I got outcoached. We got outplayed. We did the things you can’t do. We were minus-two in the turnover battle — you can’t do that. Penalties. Drops. Not good. That is going to get you beat, and it did, so credit to the Jets.”
Truth be told, Gang
Green put together a relatively solid performance against a quality football team, and got out to what seemed like a commanding 20-3 lead by the midway point of the third quarter.
Cody Parkey’s 44-yard field goal kicked off the scoring in the game for the Browns with 9:26 left in the first quarter, but it was all Jets for the next 30 minutes or so. Braxton Berrios’ 43yard touchdown catch on a perfectly executed flea flicker pass by wide receiver Jamison Crowder capped
off a five-play, 66-yard drive with just 34 seconds remaining in the first quarter, and ultimately gave the Jets a lead they would never relinquish.
“We ran it last year, and we ran it a couple of years ago,” Gase said. “It’s one of those ones that, every once in a while, we stick in there and practice it. This week, it just came up. They did a great job of executing it. I thought Berrios did a really good job of lulling the guy to sleep to where he got by him. Crowder threw a great ball.”
A short scoring strike from Sam Darnold to Chris Herndon made it a 13-3 game early in the second quarter — Sam Ficken’s point after try was blocked — and a Crowder touchdown reception of his own with 10:26 left in the third quarter gave the Jets a three-score advantage that put them well on their way to their second win of the season.
Well, almost.
As nothing ever seems to come easy for the Jets, Cleveland rallied with two second half touchdowns after mustering just 103 total yards in the first two quarters; Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt both had short scoring runs to cut it to a 20-16 game — Parkey missed the PAT on the Hunt touchdown — and still had a chance even after a late Ficken field goal.
With the ball at the Jets 16-yard line and just 1:18 remaining, quarterback Baker Mayfield’s 4th and 1 attempt to run up the middle was thwarted by the Jets defense; Tarell Basham capped off a huge game by forcing a fumble that ended up in the arms of Hunt, who had appeared to gain the first down after recovering the ball. But officials correctly ruled that the offense cannot advance a fumble on fourth down or the last two minutes of a half unless the original ball-carrier ends up regaining possession.
“I just thought it was a great job with that second effort,” Gase said. “When I saw him standing straight up, I’m not sure who it was that came off the edge there. When I saw the ball pop free, it was just about where was he when it happened. I wasn’t really sure there. Once they replayed it, I felt a lot better about it.”