CHEMISTRY SET

Fitzpatrick-Marshall display impressive connection in ‘W’

IF YOU are going to start a new era, if you are a head coach for the first time, the head coach of the New York Jets no less, you better expect the unexpected. Something unfathomable: your defense knocking a reckless Josh McCown out of the game in the first quarter with a concussion and Johnny Football coming in off the bench and throwing a 54yard touchdown pass as if he were back at Texas A&M, something like that.

If you are Todd Bowles, you get yourself a game ball handed to you in the locker room by D’Brickashaw Ferguson on a day when you acted like you had been there before because you showed up at MetLife Stadium with a raging Chris Ivory and an offensive line that played Bully Ball. You showed up with an opportunistic defense ... but mostly because you showed up with a wise old head at quarterback named Ryan Fitzpatrick throwing the football to a wise old head at receiver named Brandon Marshall, one wily journeyman to another, carrying the rookie coach to Jets 31, Browns 10. Ice Bowles. “He’s a calming presence,” Fitzpatrick said. “He’s also got a lot of fire, but you look at him on the sideline and just kind of feel at ease. He’s very comfortable in who he is and in his role, and we certainly all feed off of that.”

The feeling was mutual. It was Marshall’s stunning strip of safety Tashaun Gipson’s secondquarter interception that in the blink of an eye changed momentum and positioned Fitzpatrick at the Cleveland 9, and quickly it was 77.

“That play to me was the play of the game,” Bowles said. Marshall Law. “When he caught it, first thing I thought about was getting the ball back,” Marshall said.

First thing Geno Smith must have thought about was how much of a difference Marshall (six reception, 62 yards, one touchdown) might have made for him.

“I think that play kind of shows his competitiveness,” Fitzpatrick said. “Definitely owe him a soda pop for that one.”

Fitzpatrick (15for24, 179 yards, two touchdowns, one interception) put the fizz in the halftime locker room with an efficient twominute drive — three passes to Marshall — that culminated in a rifled 15yard touchdown pass to Eric Decker. Jets 14, Browns 10. It was Fitzpatrick’s favorite throw of the day.

“The twominute drill, having to call that one at the line ... me knowing presnap what Deck was going to do with the look that we got,” Fitzpatrick said. “I just felt like there were a lot of things that came together on that one.”

Harvard quarterbacks can figure these things out on the fly.

“He does everything right,” Marshall said. “It’ll take us 10 minutes to sit down and talk about everything that he does right. I just think it starts with the way he takes control of not only the huddle, but the entire building. So he’s a great guy for all of us to follow. We’re fortunate to have him.”

An amazing trust has been built in a short amount of time between Fitzpatrick and Marshall.

“He’s just played a lot of football,” Fitzpatrick said. “And I think we understand each other, he understands a lot about this game, and he understands a lot about the quarterback’s job, and that’s very helpful for me for a wide receiver to have that.”

That trust was on full display after a Marcus Williams pick set Fitzpatrick up at the Cleveland 28 early in the third quarter. On thirdand2, he got rid of the ball under duress to Marshall, whose toetap by the sideline got 17 yards.

Now Fitzpatrick had it thirdandgoal at the Cleveland 1.

Now Marshall had a 1yard touchdown catch in the right corner of the end zone.

Marshall: “I was kind of screaming at the coaches a little bit ’ cause they took me off the field the play before, and it was a good feeling when they called me back in there. So once we saw oneonone, I knew he was coming. It was all Fitz. [Joe] Haden jumped inside, Fitz put it only where I can catch it. That was routine.”

Fitzpatrick: “The ref had kind of messed up in terms of the TV timeout, so we had to get back in the huddle. Brandon was on the sideline, told ’ em he wanted the ball, I said, ‘OK, let’s put Brandon in, if we get the right look, we’ll give him the ball.’ He had a big size advantage, and he went up and got it. So that makes my job easy, to have a player like that as competitive as he is to go and make that play.”

Bowles: “He throws them open. Even when they’re covered, they’re not covered.”

Bowles’ socalled Porsche is in good hands.

“So far, it’s running well,” Willie Colon said, and laughed.