For the Jets and their fans, this one had been a long time coming. And by long time, we mean the best showing by the Jets against the Patriots in this millennium.
And the Green & White fashioned a good part of their 24-3 victory over their AFC East nemeses with myriad offensive weapons to help get the job done.
"We had an efficient offense," QB Aaron Rodgers summed up about the Jets' eye-popping and jinx-banishing numbers in the 24-3 defeat of the Patriots on Thursday night. "We were good on third down, we spread the ball around a lot, we ran the ball pretty well, we pass-protected well, I moved off the spot pretty decently. There's a lot of things to build on from this game."
Of all the things the Jets wanted to accomplish against New England in their home opener — score early, take the lead, complement the defense's effort — distributing the ball was high on the offense's list. WR Garrett Wilson as always was option No. 1 on a lot of pass plays, but as Rodgers said, "The entire focus of all three defenses we've played has been taking Garrett away."
So rather than No. 8 force-feeding No. 5, Rodgers found Wilson when he could for five catches, 33 yards and the Jets' final TD and the first Rodgers-to-Wilson regular-season score, a 2-yarder to make it 21-3.
"Me and the end zone have a tough relationship right now," Wilson said with a smile, "so it definitely felt good to get on good terms with the end zone."
By then, Allen Lazard returned to the fore with his 10-yard TD catch-and-run to open the scoring, Mike Williams established new Jets game highs with three catches for 34 yards, and even returner Xavier Gipson made an appearance on the scrimmage section of the stat sheet with two catches for 16 yards.
And where were the Jets tight ends? They were contributing to the dismantling of the Patriots defense. Tyler Conklin in fact had a game-leading and career-high 93 receiving yards on his five receptions, four of which secured first downs and three of which converted third downs.
"I think as a group, we control what we can control," said Conklin, whose group included Jeremy Ruckert and his first two receptions of the season. "We go out there and try to do our best to help our team be successful, whatever that is, in the run game or the pass game. And tonight we just happened to get some targets, and we're pretty happy about it."
"Conk, he's a dog, man," Wlson said. "He deserves everything he did today and what's about to come his way, because the world doesn't know. To see him out there and just do what he does, people see it and think he did some extraordinary thing. No, that's Tyler. That's how he balls and he has a lot more to give."
Then there were no touchdowns for the B&B guys, but RBs Breece Hall and rookie Braelon Allen combined for their most offensive touches in a game, 34, and 151 scrimmage yards to compare favorably to their 30 touches for 170 yards at Tennessee.
"I felt like we had a good rhythm," Allen told Eric Allen and Quincy Enunwa on Jets Overtime that aired on newyorkjets.com after the game. "Everybody kind of made plays and we were flowing well, playing complementary football. The more we can run the ball, it opens up things for the passing game."
Even Rodgers contributed to the ground game with three scrambles for 18 yards.
All the weapons and the strategy helped the Jets do all those other things they wanted to do. They got the 7-0 lead on Lazard's score and never lost it, spending 49:21 ahead and 0:00 behind for the game — the most against the Patriots in a win since 2000 at Gillette Stadium.
"We kind of jumped the ball early," head coach Robert Saleh said of the Jets' quick opening pace against the Patriots, coming off of their home-opening overtime loss to Seattle. "They went into OT for 72 plays last week. We were trying to go a little quicker pace the first couple of drives, especially that first drive, which I felt we were able to accomplish. I believe we reeled off over 40 plays in that first half. We tried to lean on 'em as much as we could."
Then at one point in the second half, Saleh appeared to lean into Rodgers on the sideline with a forearm shiver and Rodgers pushed back. Dispute between HC and QB? Hardly.
"Robert's not a big hugger. I didn't know he was going for the hug," Rodgers said. "He likes to do the two-hand chest push, too. He talks a lot about two-score leads. So I kind of gave him a push and said, 'Two-score lead.' "
The Jets would go on to a three-score win and margins in yardage (400-139), first downs (27-11) and possession time (40:04-19:56). All things seemed possible, at least for this one short week and stellar night, for a little complementary football and ball distribution by the Green & White.
"We're going to celebrate this," Rodgers said, "but we expect to win."
"We'll enjoy this one. It's well-deserved," Saleh said. "But come Monday, it's on to Denver."
