Truest words of the week spoken by Jets coach Robert Saleh Sunday night just after 9 as he drove home from one of the franchise’s most exhilarating wins.
“It’s a league of equality.”
Zero unbeatens after six weeks. One winless team. Two-thirds of the teams (21 of 32) have two, three or four wins.
This league, right now, is about games like Sunday’s in the Meadowlands, with the unbeaten Eagles, 12-0 all-time against the Jets, comfy favorites to make it 13. And all weekend it was, well, just a strange scene.
On Thursday, it looked like the Jets would have both starting corners available to play against one of the league’s best quarterbacks, Jalen Hurts. Then, on Friday, D.J. Reed didn’t pass the final stages of concussion protocol, and Sauce Gardner was sent home with what was believed to be illness. When he came into work Saturday, he too was found to be concussed. Both out.
“We’re missing our top three corners, our two best offensive linemen and our Hall of Fame quarterback,” Saleh mused. “Playing a 5-0 team that our franchise has never beaten. It was like hell on wheels, trying to put a gameplan together with what we were missing that put the train back on the track.”
Speaking of the Hall of Fame quarterback, one month after surgery to repair a torn Achilles suffered on the fourth play of the season, Aaron Rodgers was on the field at MetLife Stadium before the game. Walking with no crutches. Throwing perfect spirals. What on God’s green earth.
“Aaron was in our facility on Saturday,” Saleh said. “I was talking to him. I was like, ‘So what’s the deal? You gonna go up to the box tomorrow? Watch from the box?’ He goes, ‘No, I want be on the field.’ I was like, ‘What about your ankle?’ He goes, ‘I’m fine.’ I was like, ‘K, whatever you want, buddy.’ He is on a mission. I don’t put anything past him. I’ve heard he’s absolutely dominating rehab and he really wants to get back this year. That’s why getting wins like this and staying in it and staying in the hunt, giving him that opportunity to fulfill his mission, is so vital.”
All day, Hurts had to run from the Jets’ omnipresent rush. Despite the understudies running around the secondary, Hurts got picked three times. The last one, by a totally unknown safety named Tony Adams (more about him in a sec).
I told Saleh he had to find the TV copy of the game to watch. I told him Hurts is one of the most resilient quarterbacks I’ve ever seen, one of the great fighters at the position I’ve watched in 40 years covering the game. But something odd happened after the pick by Adams, and after the Jets ran for the go-ahead touchdown on the next play. Hurts just stared into space on the bench. He looked … like he’d had it. And when he got the ball back for one last shot, Hurts went incomplete, incomplete, two-yard completion, incomplete. Ballgame.
Just weird. The whole thing. It’s like the Jets, by the end of the game, just beat this very good team down.
“I want to give a lot of credit to [defensive coordinator] Jeff Ulbrich and the staff,” Saleh said. “They did a really, really nice job with the game plan, and from a coverage standpoint, did a really, really good job mixing things up to create a little confusion and just enough indecision to walk him into some of those mistakes. Same things that I feel like we’ve been able to do against all the better quarterbacks.”
One other thing: Who were these guys in the secondary?
Who is this Tony Adams, who made the play of the year for the Jets?
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“Tony Adams,” Saleh began, on his road home. “Undrafted rookie free agent a year ago out of Illinois. We get him in camp and you’re not expecting much out of an undrafted kid, you know? Anyone who says they’re expecting much is fooling themselves. The story on Tony coming out of college is he played every position—corner, nickel, safety. Because of all that versatility, it kind of hurt him in the sense that nobody was really sure what he was. We thought if we just put him at one position, I think he’ll be alright. So we put him at safety. That’s part of our philosophy on defense: Here’s your five things that you’ve got to do, and you’re going to do them better than anybody in the world. That’s our philosophy. He just gets better and better and better. And he got to the point where we had to make a decision. Credit [GM] Joe Douglas. You can play roster roulette and cut him at the end of the training camp or you say goodbye to a draft pick. If we lose this kid, we are gonna be sick to our stomachs. So we kept him and cut [2021 fifth-rounder] Jason Pinnock, and good for Jason—he found a home with the Giants.
“This year, Tony absolutely attacked training camp. Just got better every day. Earned the starting spot. The way he communicates, his explosiveness, his range, his instincts. Missed a couple games with a hamstring, but came back last week and now he’s got a chance to be a pretty darn good one.
“On his big play, again, credit to Ulbrich. We were showing a certain pressure that strains their protection system. When the ball was snapped, Tony kept his eyes on the quarterback. Big play, but Tony didn’t panic in the moment. He had his feet on the ground and when the quarterback threw the ball he made a break on it.”
The Jets, minus Rodgers, are 3-3. Wins over Josh Allen, Russell Wilson, Jalen Hurts. Three-point loss to Patrick Mahomes. Manageable schedule after this week’s bye. Who knows about this crazy alien Aaron Rodgers and whatever crazy power he has to heal faster than mortals? Sit back and enjoy the ride. This is one fun team to watch.
“These guys inspire me,” Saleh said. “They inspire the league. Think about the things we’ve done.”
Think about the things they might do.
Read more in Peter King’s full Football Morning in America column.
