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There was a moment. There was. The Jets defense had registered a stop, then stiffened after a Breece Hall fumble deep in their own end, holding the 49ers to a field goal. Now it was Aaron Rodgers’ turn, and for 7 minutes and 7 seconds of a September Monday night, every vision of every Jets fan for 18 months seemed brilliant and alive.
Twelve plays. Seventy yards. Rodgers to Garrett Wilson on third down. Rodgers to Wilson on third down, again. Rodgers to Wilson, again, this time on third-and-seven. Then Hall, rumbling in from the 3. It was Jets 7, 49ers 3, and it was perfect, all of it: offense, defense, and between them everything seemed possible.
This, after all had been the plan, 18 months in the making.
“But it’s like Mike Tyson said,” linebacker C.J. Mosley said. “Everyone has a plan …”
The back end of that famous quote was this: “… until they get hit.”
And the Jets got hit.
The Jets got smacked in the mouth, smashed everywhere else, bullied at the line of scrimmage. The defense — pride and joy of the team for two years — had the early stop, then couldn’t get off the field the rest of the night. The 49ers scored on eight straight drives.
Get this: after the Jets went up 7-3, the 49ers ran 44 of the game’s next 51 plays. Think about that. Forty-four of 51. The Jets didn’t stop the Niners again until backup quarterback Brandon Allen took a knee with 25 seconds left in the game, mercifully ending the massacre where it stood at 32-19.
It felt much, much worse than that.
“They beat us up front, plain and simple,” Jets coach Robert Saleh said. “Credit to them. They’re an elite football team.”
For a bright, shining moment, the Jets had reason to believe they were, too. And look: they might yet be one. They have the fourth-easiest schedule in the league, and that was before you cross off the 49ers, the defending NFC champions. There remains a clear path for them.
As we said a day ago, after witnessing another less-than-agreeable opener: the Chiefs lost in Week 1 last year, too. Things went better for them after that. Things ought to get better for the Jets after this, too, starting with next week in Nashville, against a Titans team that looked less than intimidating against the Bears on Sunday.
Good deal. Now they have to go to Tennessee and beat them. If they are as good as they propose to be, that’s not a debatable subject. No game is ever a must-win in Week 2 of a football season but it feels like something close for the Jets, working on 13 straight playoff-free seasons, working on a punishing early-season three-games-in-10-days grind.
Waking up Tuesday morning in a painfully familiar place: last place in the AFC. By themselves.
“We did a lot of nice things,” Saleh said. “We’ll be better.”
Rodgers agreed: “There were moments. We couldn’t sustain them.”
Rodgers? He’s the least of the Jets’ worries right now. He was fine. He was 13-for-21 for 167 yards, a touchdown, and an interception after playing a grand total of four downs in almost two years. On the Jets’ first two scoring plays he gave Jets fans glimpses of what competent quarterbacking looks like, something they haven’t seen since Ryan Fitzpatrick — and flashes of elite quarterbacking, last seen in 1998 from Vinny Testaverde.
Hall was fine, though the Jets will need more than fine going forward. The offense, for a change, won’t be what made the 3,000-mile trip home seem twice as long. It’s the defense that’ll do that. Christian McCaffrey didn’t play, and it didn’t make a difference. Brock Purdy picked them apart. Jordan Mason gashed them. It was hard to watch.
(Although there were two people who probably enjoyed every play with wide smiles on their faces while sipping celebratory pina coladas. One was Haason Reddick. The other was Tony Dandy, Reddick’s agent.)
“We’ll get it fixed,” Saleh insisted.
They’d better, and they’d better be snappy about it. The first soft patch of the Jets schedule begins now, and if they’re bound for better things they’ll learn from this billy-clubbing, get better because of it, and maybe it’ll serve them down the road. Rodgers, for one, was in a forward-thinking mood.
“They are a championship-level group,” he said of the 49ers. “I hope to see them there.”
