On Halloween night, the Jets rose from the dead. With their season on life support, the boys in black said: not today. 

The Jets playoff hopes live on, at least for another week.

Behind a suffocating defense and an absurd touchdown catch by Garrett Wilson, the Jets improved their record to 3-6 and took down budding superstar C.J. Stroud, holding him to under 200 passing yards on the night. 

At one point it looked as though the ‘same old Jets’ mantra would hold true. A rookie goalline error by Malachi Corley meant the Jets were scoreless going into half time, but the defense had allowed just 7 points, giving the team hope that if they could find something, anything, they could come out with the W. 

They did just that, behind an acrobatic Wilson, who did his best Air-Jordan impersonation by hauling in an OBJ-like one-handed grab to help the Jets outscore the Texans 21-6 in the second half and record their third win of the season. It was Wilson’s second score of the evening, guaranteeing already that he will end 2024 with a career high in touchdown receptions. 

That acrobatic catch had a completion probability of just 13.6% according to Next Gen Stats, the 5th-most improbable completion of the season, and most improbable by Aaron Rodgers since 2020.

But while the touchdown grabs will get the attention, this win was so much deeper than that. 

“For this team to have the resiliency to come back and play the way they did against a really good opponent… I’m proud of them.”

The Jets haven’t always handled adversity, they haven’t always shown an ability to bounce back from setbacks, but last night every single player on that field dug deep. 

C.J. Stroud was sacked 8 times by the ferocious Jets pass rush. Will McDonald may not have gotten in the sack column, but the young phenom recorded a season-high 9 pressures on 33 pass rushes (27.3%). Haason Reddick generated 8 pressures on 32 pass rushes and Quinnen Williams was near-unblockable on the inside. 

The Jets generated 33 pressures on the night and Jeff Ulbrich called an excellent defensive game plan to neutralise one of the best QBs in football. 

Starting the game without Allen Lazard, who found himself placed on injured reserve before the game, down both starting safeties (Tony Adams, Chuck Clark) and backup safety (Ashtyn Davis), without defensive captain C.J Mosley, without starting RG Alijah Vera-Tucker and losing their two starting guards during the game, the Jets still found a way to win. 

Rookie tackle Olu Fashanu played his first snaps at guard, swing tackle Max Mitchell filled in at LG and former practice squad signing Jalen Mills did a fine job in the secondary. It was the Wilson show in the highlights package, but the contributions ran up and down that lineup. 

It was that ability to face adversity and come out the other side that leads you to believe that maybe, just maybe, this team can go on an improbable run. They don’t have to look far to find inspiration. Just across town, baseball’s New York Mets rebounded from 11 games below .500 to battle their way to the National League Championship Series. Oh what a story it would be. 

The last time the Jets won the AFC East was 2002, that year they started 2-5 before going 7-2 the rest of the way. I’m not saying that’s going to happen this year, but every great journey starts with a first step and the Jets took that step last night. 

But that step will only matter if they can take the next one, and then the one after that. Realistically the Jets will need to win out to guarantee the playoffs, and they would have a good shot to get in with a 10-7 record – the Pittsburgh Steelers got in with that record last year. In 2022, the Los Angeles Chargers got in at 10-7 and the Miami Dolphins got in at 9-8. So there remains plenty to play for. 

The Jets had a tough start to the year, but their schedule eases off…at least according to the W/L records as things stand.

After taking down the 6-2 Texans (now 6-3) they’ll head west to Arizona to face the 4-4 Cardinals before returning home to take on the 4-4 Indianapolis Colts ahead of their week 12 bye. After that, it’s the 4-4 Seattle Seahawks before travelling to Florida to face the 2-5 Dolphins and 2-6 Jacksonville Jaguars.

Incremental improvement leads to bigger and better things. One game at a time.