CINCINNATI – There are no asterisks allowed this time, no qualification, no reason for the Jets to have to explain themselves to anyone. This time, they lined up opposite a team fully committed to play 60 minutes, fully expecting to pay the Jets back for a week-old slaughter.
No excuses this time.
And none needed.
They walked into Paul Brown Stadium and they beat the Bengals, 24-14. They shut down Chad Ochocinco. They pestered Carson Palmer into another miserable outing, making him look like the rookie quarterback out of USC. They found a star of the future in Shonn Greene, who chose the most opportune times possible to have the best game of his professional life.
Best of all, when the game was still in the balance, they wrapped their fingers around it and grabbed it for themselves. We don’t need to go chapter and verse and repeat every awful memory out of the Jets’ tortured history.
Suffice it to say there were plenty of Jets fans who felt their hearts sink early in the fourth quarter, when Cedric Benson – having his way with the Jets defense in a way no running back has so far this season – rattled off a 47-yard touchdown run that sliced what felt like a safe and sound 21-7 lead to 21-14. Duly revised and resuscitated, the 63,686 people inside the stadium were suddenly rousted back to life.
And seemed committed to shouting the Jets back to the airport.
Then Mark Sanchez – who, like Greene, picked a hell of a time to enjoy his coming-out party – found Dustin Keller for a huge gain over the middle, turning the field upside-down, setting up a field goal that finished off Jay Feely’s already busy day (he had to assume punting duties when Steve Weatherford came up “ill.”
And then they sat back and they watched the Bengals light themselves on fire, missing a chip-shot field goal that would at least have allowed them to stay in the game. It was the kind of play that self-defeating Jets fans have expected from – and seen – out of their own team plenty of times through the years. The view from this side had to look an awful lot better.
So they buy themselves at least another week of season, and there is the delicious possibility that in the same way they were able to make an honest team out of the Bengals this week, they might get another shot at proving their win in Indianapolis two weeks ago was no fluke. In any event, they will surely have a lot to say about it this week.
The first half belonged to Sanchez but it also belonged to Brian Schottenheimer, the offensive coordinator who is known to be on the Bills’ radar and after today may find himself the object of other team’s affections, as well.
The Jets’ two first-half touchdowns were the products of wonderful calls from Schottenheimer, one a pitch to Shonn Greene after the teeth of Bengals defense was lured to the opposite side of the field, one a wonderful play-action call that freed Dustin Keller for the tie-breaking TD. And by rights, the Jets would have had a third touchdown, too, if Braylon Edwards hadn’t dropped a beautiful ball placed between the “1” and the “7” on his jersey by Sanchez.
Paul Brown Stadium was jazzed and it was juiced, and it had waited a long time for the Bengals to make a return trip to the playoffs. The last time, Carson Palmer barely made a cameo appearance before his knee was blown out in about nine different places. This time, Palmer only looked that way across the game’s first 30 minutes, missing his receiver wild high and looking awfully banged up and tentative.
Sanchez looked exactly the opposite, and as a result of his confidence the Jets couldn’t help but exude a wealth of confidence as well. The Bengals took an early 7-0 lead thanks to some special teams snafus, and it was the perfect time for the Jets to fold up if they were so inclined. Surely, if the swagger they’d exhibited all week was nothing more than false bravado, that’s how it would have gone down.
Instead, the Jets stiffened on defense, and on offense they exhibited a diversity and an imagination that was almost shocking to see. A good feeling for Jets fans, one that lasted the rest of the afternoon.