Defense.
This was the Jets’ only chance to win this game, to upset the Super Bowl runner-up Eagles on Sunday at MetLife Stadium.
And it was precisely what stole this game, resuscitated the Jets’ season and sent them into their bye week at 3-3.
This was a defensive masterpiece. Perhaps the only shame was the fact that D.J. Reed, who earlier this season proclaimed that this Jets defense had a chance to rival what the ’85 Bears’ did decades ago, wasn’t in uniform for the game because he’s out with a concussion.
Reed was ridiculed by many for that comment, but what you witnessed on Sunday was an ’85-Bears effort on defense with four turnovers forced in a wild 20-14 comeback victory by the Jets.
The final act of the day on defense was safety Tony Adams stepping in front of Eagles tight end Dallas Goedert, picking Jalen Hurts off and returning the ball 45 yards to the Philadelphia 8-yard line with the Jets trailing 14-12 and 1:50 remaining in a game their offense seemed determined to waste.
This was always going to be a difficult game for the Jets to win.
At kickoff, the Eagles were the NFL’s only remaining undefeated team with the 49ers having been knocked off by the Browns earlier in the day.
Philadelphia, of course, is the defending NFC champion and the Super Bowl runner-up.
The Eagles’ offense is loaded, beginning with Hurts, their all-purpose quarterback who hurts opponents as much with his legs as with his arm.
Around him, Hurts has two dangerous receivers on the outside in A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith, a productive tight end in Goedert and a solid running back in D’Andre Swift. Oh yes, and one of the best offensive lines in the game.
The Jets’ only true chance to win this game was for their defense to play up to the ’85 Bears level that Reed had projected.
The problem on this day was that the Jets entered the game wounded, with their top two cornerbacks — Reed and Sauce Gardner — out with concussions. That left them with backups and practice-squad call-ups manning their secondary against that stacked Philadelphia offense.
The game was close thanks to massive contributions from Jermaine Johnson, C.J. Mosley, Quinnen Williams, Quincy Williams, Bryce Hall, Solomon Thomas and Adams. And that’s naming only a few of the Jets defensive players who played marvelously.
Time after time, the defense gave the offense chances and time after time the offense failed to capitalize.
Before the Adams interception, the Jets forced three turnovers and converted those into three points.
One measly field goal is what the offense managed despite a Quinnen Williams interception — the first of his career — giving the offense the ball at the Philadelphia 45-yard line in the second quarter.
The Jets went four-and-out, failing on fourth-and-5 when Zach Wilson connected with tight end Tyler Conklin for 4 yards.
Later in the first half, Mosley, the emotional leader of the Jets’ defense, violently separated Swift from the ball with 1:40 remaining before the intermission. Quincy Williams recovered the fumble on the Jets 49-yard line.
The Jets got a 35-yard Greg Zuerlein field goal — the third of four he’d kick in the game — as the clock ran out to bring the Jets to within 14-9 at the half.
Early in the third quarter, on the Eagles’ opening drive, they were moving — until Bryce Huff and Quinton Jefferson buried Hurts for an 8-yard sack and then Quinnen Williams hurried Hurts on a short pass on third down.
The Jets’ offense then wasted a free play on which the Eagles were offsides and Jets receiver Garrett Wilson got inside the Philadelphia 10-yard line. If was all eliminated because of an Allen Lazard crack-back block on Eagles safety Reed Blankenship. That pushed the Jets back 15 yards.
Only the Jets’ offense can lose 15 yards on a free play. That mess pushed them out of field-goal range and they ended up punting the ball away.
Another opportunity squandered by the offense.
And yet the defense wasn’t finished giving.
Early in the fourth quarter, Bryce Hall, the Jets cornerback who authored the scoop-and-score that iced last week’s win in Denver and was forced into starting Sunday with Gardner and Reed out, picked off Hurts 1:18 into the quarter.
That play was made possible by Jermaine Johnson, who hit Hurts’ arm and altered the throw, and it gave the Jets the ball on the Jets 38-yard line.
The offense’s response? Three plays for minus-5 yards and a punt.
The Jets’ defense held the Eagles out of the end zone on Philly’s next possession when Huff and John Franklin-Myers sacked Hurts. That forced a 37-yard field goal attempt for Eagles kicker Jake Elliott, who’d missed only one attempt all season.
Elliott missed, pushing the kick wide right.
Another opportunity for the Jets’ offense, who took over at its own 20 with 8:13 remaining in the game.
This time, the Jets got 8 yards in five plays before punting the ball away.
Incredibly, there would be one last gem from the Jets defense — the Adams interception.
After the Jets took the 20-14 lead on a Breece Hall TD and a two-point conversion, the game would fittingly be clinched when Jets safety Jordan Whitehead broke up Hurts’ final pass.
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