EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Sauce Gardner thought the game was over, so he removed the tape from his hand, preparing to head to the locker room, thinking the Jets had lost. When Giants kicker Graham Gano missed a 35-yard field goal, the Jets down by 3, only 24 seconds remained.
To that point on Sunday, the Giants had accumulated a net total of minus-8 passing yards and yet the Jets were still losing. In regulation, the Jets were 1 for 14 on third down with two turnovers. In a drive late in the fourth quarter as the Jets attempted to stay alive, Zach Wilson took a sack on fourth-and-long, to put the Giants in field-goal range — setting up that Gano miss.
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There was little reason to believe the Jets, starting at their own 25-yard line with no timeouts, could move the ball quickly enough up the field and into field-goal range, while leaving time on the clock for Greg Zuerlein to tie the game.
Then, they did.
“When I saw our defense got a stop, I thought: 24 seconds, no problem,” Wilson said.
Wilson completed a 29-yard pass to Garrett Wilson as an offsides penalty was called on the Giants, giving the Jets time to get to the line of scrimmage without much clock burning. Then Wilson completed a 29-yard pass to Allen Lazard to get to the Giants 17-yard line and spiked the ball with one second remaining. Zuerlein nailed the 35-yarder to send the game into overtime.
So, Gardner started taping his hand up again. Lesson learned.
“I don’t even know how it happened,” Gardner said. “That’s on me for not having all the faith at the end. I thought it was over with. If I want to be the leader that I say I am, I gotta be able to lead when it’s good and bad. It’s easy when everything is going in the right direction.”
Everything did not go in the right direction on Sunday for the Jets. By halftime, the Jets had lost their only two remaining centers (Connor McGovern and Wes Schweitzer) to injuries. That forced them to play Xavier Newman, who was signed to the practice squad Oct. 5 and has only played guard in the NFL. His first snap was muffed, lost and recovered by the Giants. His second snap wasn’t much better. But, eventually, it smoothed out.
It was a rainy afternoon, and an ugly game, but somehow the Jets won 13-10. They stuffed the Giants offense, weakened by the loss of Tyrod Taylor, on the opening drive of overtime and quickly moved up the field, helped by a defensive pass interference. They won on a 33-yard Zuerlein field goal.
A WIN IS A WIN BABY.#NYJvsNYG on CBS pic.twitter.com/gBkE2Tovoe
— New York Jets (@nyjets) October 29, 2023
An ugly win counts the same as a pretty one and so now the Jets are 4-3. They’ll have a winning record heading into November despite losing Aaron Rodgers in Week 1. That’s worth celebrating, even if there is still plenty to be worried about after this latest victory.
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“They never ask how,” Jets coach Robert Saleh said. “They ask how many.”
The how is worth exploring in this case. The Jets converted a third down in overtime, an 11-yard completion from Zach Wilson to Garrett Wilson, but still ended 2 of 15 on third-down conversions. They have the NFL’s worst third-down conversion rate (23 percent) and it’s not particularly close. The Browns rank 31st, and they’ve converted 31.1 percent of their third downs.
Before that last drive in the fourth quarter, Wilson had completed 14 of 29 passes for 171 yards — 50 of them coming on a catch-and-run touchdown from running back Breece Hall where Hall did most of the work. Wilson also took the sack on fourth-and-long in the fourth quarter, fumbled Newman’s first snap — which Wilson took responsibility for — and missed a few easy throws in the flat. One should’ve been an easy completion to Hall on third-and-1 early in the fourth quarter.
The running game wasn’t especially effective, either. Hall rushed for only 17 yards on 12 carries. And the Jets punted 11 times — they might not have won without Thomas Morstead, who pinned the Giants’ offense inside the 20 on four punts, and inside the 5 on two of them. Some Jets players felt he deserved a game ball. A team’s punter being the player of the game should not necessarily be considered a good thing.
“The reality is we have standards on the offensive side of the ball that we’re not meeting right now and we take this win with a grain of salt,” said Garrett Wilson, who finished with 100 yards on seven catches.
"Unbelievable job by the defense. Obviously the special teams as well. We gotta be better offensively." – Zach Wilson telling @AJRoss_TV how the @nyjets got it done pic.twitter.com/YURXp6x9x8
— NFL on CBS 🏈 (@NFLonCBS) October 29, 2023
The offensive line didn’t have its best day, either, though the circumstances are worth explaining. The Giants, led by defensive coordinator Wink Martindale, are known for bringing nonstop pressure. And they got it Sunday: Per TruMedia, the Jets’ offensive line allowed 21 pressures and four sacks, the first a strip sack in the first quarter when defensive end Kayvon Thibodeaux easily got around left tackle Mekhi Becton.
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The sequence to sum up the Jets’ luck on the offensive line came at the end of the first half, though. McGovern suffered a left knee injury with 12:04 left in the second quarter. He barely put weight on his leg as he was helped off the field and carted into the locker room. The Jets were already without rookie Joe Tippmann, who had been starting at right guard. So the Jets slid Schweitzer over from guard to center and plugged in Newman at guard.
Then, Schweitzer suffered a calf injury on a third-down play with 4:20 left in the second quarter. He limped right into the locker room with the help of trainers. Both are expected to miss time.
“There was a lot of panic on the sideline,” Saleh said.
Then, he heard offensive line coach Keith Carter chime in with a simple message: Shut the eff up. We’ll be fine.
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Newman muffed his first snap and the Giants recovered, and his second one nearly sailed over Wilson’s head. Those were the first two snaps Newman and Wilson had ever taken together. Just in case, left guard Laken Tomlinson practiced snaps on the sideline in between series.
Dire straits.
Wilson and Newman were in constant communication. At one point before the final drive in the fourth quarter, Newman asked Wilson what the cadence would sound like if they had to spike the ball.
“That just kind of tells you,” Wilson said with a laugh, “we haven’t practiced that.”
“Handle your business,” Newman said. “That was the talk on the sideline.”
The Jets’ defense, again, handled its business. The Giants finished with a net of negative-9 passing yards. Saquon Barkley ran for 128 yards but on 36 carries, averaging only 3.6 yards per carry. By the end of the game, Saleh figured out the Giants were afraid to even let practice squad quarterback Tommy DeVito throw the ball, he said. DeVito was 2 of 7 for minus-1 passing yard. The Giants were 2 of 19 on third down, 1 for 3 in the red zone and the Jets got four sacks and 15 total pressures, per TruMedia. Rookie defensive end Will McDonald disrupted Gano’s kick on that miss in the fourth quarter, too.
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It wasn’t a perfect performance, though. The defense committed six penalties, some of them costly. Saleh called that “unacceptable.” But, as it often has since last year, the defense did enough to keep the Jets in the game.
Finally, the offense rewarded the defense at the end.
“That’s the beauty of it,” Garrett Wilson said. “You can play like that and still have a chance to win at the end of it because of our defense. … They keep us in every game. We feel like we’re letting them down sometimes. We’re this close to being special on both sides of the ball, but to pull it out was a great feeling.”’
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(Photo of Greg Zuerlein and Thomas Morstead: Vincent Carchietta / USA Today)
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