This is what happens when you make hordes of hungry football fans wait 54 weeks without a moment to catch their breath. This was the second half of a celebration that began 374 days ago when Aaron Rodgers ran onto the field at MetLife Stadium, American flag in hand.
The crowd of 83,345 went wild that night. MetLife Stadium had never been more wild. Maybe it was louder when Eli Manning threw a 99-yard pass to Victor Cruz on Christmas Eve afternoon, but that's causation. September 11, 2023, was a day of excitement. It was a day of highs and lows.
And then, about silence.
On the fourth snap of the season, someone kicked the plug out of the wall. It took until last night for the power to be restored, this time in front of 80,812 people. Finally, they got a chance to roar. Finally, they got a chance to roar. And the Jets gave them 60 minutes to do just that. The game ended 24-3, and as the score suggests, it was a total loss.
“I love the yelling. I love the yelling,” said defensive end Will McDonald IV, whose two more sacks and one tackle for loss on the night were part of a defensive ferocious attack that Patriots quarterback Jacoby Brissett will likely watch while he sleeps all weekend. “I love hearing it. We're doing it for them.”
The Jets scored three more touchdowns Thursday night, their third straight game and the first time they'd done so since (checks the clock) 1989. They hadn't beaten the Patriots this badly since (checks the clock again) 1998, two years before the Jets hired a guy named Bill Belichick as their defensive coordinator in a 31-10 win for the Patriots.
So if this is starting to feel like something different, something off, that's because it is. The opener in San Francisco suddenly seems like a distant memory, even though it was only 11 days ago. The Week 2 getaway in Nashville suddenly feels almost quaint. The Jets didn't play a perfect game, but it certainly felt perfect, and long overdue.
“It was a really special night,” said Rodgers, who completed 27 of 35 passes for 281 yards and two touchdowns and completed maybe half a dozen passes that only six other players in history have completed.
And there were some passes that were a little high, a little low, a little off, but his receivers stepped up and caught most of them.
(It's funny to see a quarterback with Rodgers' pedigree muster such tenacious fingers. Somewhere in Denver, Zach Wilson is probably shaking his head in regret, thinking, “I could have used a little bit of that last year.”)
“It's been a very productive week,” Rodgers said.
The Jets were no different. They had a 2-to-1 advantage in time of possession. They held the Patriots to 139 yards, nearly a third of what they gained on a 46-yard garbage-time drive to end the game. They were aggressive and aggressive, and kept the Patriots down the field.
“I thought they were really good,” Jets coach Robert Saleh said of his defense. “We talk about style of play and standard of play with relentless effort.” Saleh delivered on all of that on Thursday.
Sure, you could chalk this all up to the Patriots, who everyone predicted would be terrible going into the season, but two weeks ago they went to Cincinnati and beat Joe Burrow's Bengals, and last week they lost to the Seahawks in Foxborough, Massachusetts, after coming from behind late in the game and losing in overtime.
They came damn close to going 2-0, but the Jets made them look like a sandbox team all night.
“Only three weeks,” Saleh said with a laugh.
But they've gotten better each week and are trending upwards, getting humiliated by a struggling 49ers team in Week 1 and threatening by the Titans in Week 2 before hanging on. Their defense lived up to their reputation on Thursday, and so did their quarterback.
“He may not be the man he used to be,” Saleh said, “but he's still got a lot going for him.”
“We all know how good Aaron is,” said tight end Tyler Conklin (five catches, 93 yards). “It's really cool to see him improve every week. I can only imagine what it's going to be like when we get to the middle of the season. There's a reason he's a Hall of Famer.”
There's a reason why expectations are high across this team, and on Thursday we got a tantalizing glimpse into what that actually means.
