Three stats to know, and more, from the Jets' 32-25 triumph at Jacksonville on Sunday afternoon:
Latest Comeback for a Hypercompetitor
You could tell Aaron Rodgers was savoring the Jets' game-winning drive many minutes after the deed was done at EverBank Stadium on Sunday.
"If you're a hypercompetitive person, whether growing up in the backyard, playing on the playground at school, playing AAU, playing flag football, or making it up as you go and playing capture-the-flag, if you're supremely competitive, you love dominating," Rodgers said after the win over the Jaguars. "Today was one of those good feelings."
Hypercompetitives also love, not loathe, being placed in game-winning predicaments. Rodgers had the opportunity to pull out W's in multiple games this season but for various reasons could only post a game-winning drive at Tennessee and a fourth-quarter comeback and GWD against the Texans.
Until Sunday at Jacksonville, when Rodgers added some more pelts to his wall. He got credit for a fourth-quarter comeback since the Jets trailed early in the final frame, 22-17. He gets a game-winning drive that ended with Breece Hall's 1-yard TD run to break a 25-25 tie. That puts A-Rod's career totals at 23 4QCs and 34 GWDs.
Ashtyn Shows the Way
Ashtyn Davis hasn't been quite the ball magnet that he was last year, but he still provides a good template for all units on the team to get excited about.
Almost out of the gate, Davis' 21-yard "sweep" on the fake punt early in the game — the yardage matching his uni number— demonstrated the special teams' special input. It was the fourth time since 2022 that he was called on to run a fake from his upback position and the third time he converted. And it turned another point-less 3-and-out opening possession into a very-much-alive drive of seven plays and 70 yards to Rodgers' 22-yard touchdown strike to Garrett Wilson for the Jets' first opening-drive TD in 15 games.
Finally for the defense, Davis back in '22 provided one of the most recent examples of a game-winning Jets takeaway in the last minute of a game when his theft of a Jacoby Brissett pass sealed the 31-30 comeback win at Cleveland. We're not saying Sauce Gardner was thinking about Davis when his INT of Mac Jones at the Jets 13 with 37 seconds left locked up the win at Jacksonville, but it was great to see Sauce follow suit and close out the win while also ending his personal pick-less streak at 36 games, or since midway through his rookie season.
And That's Not the Half of It
Jacksonville put together a grinding series of 17 offensive plays and 77 yards lasting 11:07 to produce a field goal for a 10-7 lead. It was a Jets opponent's fourth-longest drive by time since at least 1963. And that march was a large part of the Jaguars' 12:43 second-quarter time of possession, the opponents' most TOP in that quarter since the Broncos hung up a 14:05 number on the Jets at Denver in 2005.
Finally, the Jags had a first-half possession time of 21:08, which didn't seem like a good harbinger for the Jets' second half in J-ville. In fact, beginning with that '05 Denver shutout loss, the Jets had gone 0-12 in games in which they allowed opponents 20-plus minutes of first-half possession.
This season it's another story, at least as far as the game clock is concerned They defeated Houston after the Texans held the ball for 20:33 in the first half in Week 9. Then came the comeback over the Jaguars. Not a recommended approach to winning football, but a reminder if we needed it that football games last 60 minutes, not 30.
