You close your eyes and allow the imagination to run wild:
Look! It’s Aaron Rodgers walking to the home pregame locker room without a limp and without the use of a cart.
Look! It’s Aaron Rodgers launching bombs on the field before Jets-Chargers.
And then one of these days, here comes Aaron Rodgers, trotting into the Jets’ huddle, a marvel to modern science, uplifting a franchise desperate to end its 12-year playoff drought.
For all of Jetkind, it is a dream worth dreaming.
Just Heal, Baby!
To a man, the Jets believe they are a playoff team.
They didn’t look like one and they didn’t play like one when they flopped 27-6 to the Chargers on Monday night.
And the jury remains out on whether they can be one with Zach Wilson.
The shame of it all is the 4-4 Jets blew an opportunity to close to within half a game of the first-place Dolphins.
Wilson isn’t throwing interceptions. That’s all well and good.
But he isn’t throwing touchdown passes either.
This was one of those occasions when he reminded us that he is a backup quarterback in the NFL.
Contain Breece Hall and you contain the Jets, and that was the 31st-ranked overall defense and 32nd pass defense standing between Wilson and the end zone.
The Jets’ offense is The Little Engine That Couldn’t.
Wilson tried to take what they gave him and could not take what he needed to take when it mattered.
He makes a pretty throw or two with his much-ballyhooed arm talent but cannot sustain drives.
He was hit by Khalil Mack and fumbled away what became a Chargers touchdown late in the fourth quarter.
They started him out in a no-huddle offense, but it wasn’t long before it reverted to the old no-offense huddle.
The boobirds returned when he suffered his sixth of seven sacks — this one for 15 yards — trailing 20-6 just past midway through the fourth quarter.
Wilson, trailing 17-3, came out firing when the second half began — 31 yards to Garrett Wilson, 16 to Tyler Conklin — and it all stalled at the 11 when he held the ball and paid for it with back-to-back sacks. Field goal.
Déjà vu all over again: Zach Wilson marched to the Chargers 32, third-and-3:
False start on Jeremy Ruckert.
Zach Wilson is sacked — out of field-goal range (smh) — by Joey Bosa.
Zach Wilson was down 14-0 midway through the second quarter thanks to a series of Stupid Jet Tricks when he took possession at his 45 following an 11-yard sack of Justin Herbert by John Franklin-Myers.
Now it was third-and-8 at the Chargers 32 when Wilson had a wide opening begging him to run for a first down.
He decided to flip the ball to Michael Carter instead. For 3 yards. Chargers 14, Jets 3.
Wilson needs all the help he can get, and he wasn’t helped when Allen Lazard drops a second-and-10 pass on the play preceding a sack.
With 47 seconds left in the half, Wilson got it back at his 19 and after nearly having a pass over the middle intercepted by LB Eric Kendricks, he gave the ball back to Herbert with 17 seconds left. It took Herbert two completions to position Cameron Dicker for the 55-yard FG that made it 17-3.
Herbert didn’t have much success against the Jets’ defense. He didn’t need to.
With 2:45 left in the first quarter, it was Chargers 14, Jets 0, thanks to Derius Davis’ 87-yard punt return TD followed by a Garrett Wilson fumble in Chargers territory followed by a Bosa strip sack of Zach Wilson at midfield followed by an Austin Ekeler 1-yard TD run.
An AFC playoff berth is there for the taking.
Of course no one wants to rush Rodgers and his Achilles.
But Just Heal, Baby. As fast as is humanly possible.
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