Compliment The Jets’ Complementary Football To Soar Past Green Bay
The ultimate compliment one can give to Jets Head Coach Robert Saleh is that his club played great complementary football.
After a first half that was straight out of the Amazon Prime Thursday Night catalog, the Jets torched the Packers in the final two quarters in all three phases on the hallowed grounds of Lambeau Field on Sunday to run away with their third consecutive victory, 27-10.
Gang Green’s defense did all the work in a first half that saw the two teams trade field goals. That was never going to be good enough--the Jets needed their offense and special teams to join the party.
It started on New York’s second possession of the third quarter, just after I tweeted a snarky comment about whether wide receiver Corey Davis made the flight to Wisconsin. As soon as I hit “send”, Jets quarterback Zach Wilson finally connected with the man the team is paying $13.6 million to be their WR1 on an 11-yard slant. On the next play, Wilson bootlegged to his right and, throwing off his back foot, hurled a pass downfield towards Davis, who had left Packers cornerback Eric Stokes in the dust with an out-and-up move. The 41-yard gain took the ball to Green Bay’s 20-yard line, where slot receiver Braxton Berrios ran it in from there on an end around.
The Packers and future Hall of Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who had to be desperate following a late loss to the Giants in London last week, responded by moving just past midfield into Jets territory. On a third-and-8, Rodgers was sacked by Quinnen Williams, who had a monster game on the Jets’ interior defensive line with 2 sacks, 3 QB hits, 2 tackles for losses, a forced fumble, and a blocked field goal.
Forced to punt, the Packers allowed Jets rookie defensive lineman Michael Clemons to get a free run up the middle. Clemons got his massive arm on the kick for the block, whereupon Jets safety Will Parks scooped it up and dashed the remaining 20 yards into the end zone for a 17-3 Jets lead.
When Rodgers led a Packers touchdown drive to cut their deficit to one score, the Jets got a nice return from Berrios on the ensuing kickoff and went to work with the Packers fans in full throttle believing the momentum was turned. Wilson, though, stifled the crowd by finally putting his highly-touted though underachieving free agent tight ends to good use in the passing game, setting up a screen to C.J. Uzomah that went for 14 yards and then finding Tyler Conklin on one of those intermediate throws that I expected to see a lot more of for another 16 yards to set New York up at the Green Bay 34-yard line to start the fourth quarter.
The Jets had been celebrated all week for their domination in final frames, with their plus-38 point differential the league’s fourth-best through five weeks and 58 points scored the most in the NFL. On cue, Jets Offensive Coordinator Mike LaFleur, the younger brother of Green Bay Head Coach Matt LaFleur, drew up a creative trap run for rookie running back Breece Hall, who took it 34 yards to paydirt to reestablish a 14-point Jets lead.
From there, the Packers fell apart completely, dropping passes, committing dumb penalties, and allowing New York to chew up nearly seven minutes on a fourth quarter drive all on the ground that set up kicker Greg Zuerlein’s chip shot field goal to provide the final margin.
The naysayers will surely look at this game and conclude that the Jets (4-2) again got lucky because Rodgers was playing through an injured right thumb and his wide receivers stink. Once again, the counter is that the Jets were clearly the better football team on Sunday. Their defensive line was THE dominated force against a club that came into the game with a respectable 3-2 record, including a win at Tampa Bay. Rodgers has beaten many a team through guile, only the Jets wouldn’t let him get into a rhythm.
New York had its own issues in the first 30 minutes, where the offense couldn’t go anywhere and had a punt blocked too. However, Gang Green put it all together at halftime and came out of the locker room with a plan to win the game, not just stay close. The Jets’ defense, as well as they played, couldn’t win it on their own.
Compliment their complementary football.