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    • Garrett Wilson’s miraculous catch might have saved the Jets’ season
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    Garrett Wilson’s miraculous catch might have saved the Jets’ season

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    EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ – It’s been 10 years since Kenneth Wilson, a Cowboys fan, watched “Sunday Night Football” from the living room couch with his 14-year-old son Garrett in Austin, Texas. The matchup: Cowboys at Giants.

    When Odell Beckham Jr. jumped and reached back for a deep ball from Eli Manning, his right arm fully extended as he held it with one hand, it was a moment etched in NFL history that Garrett Wilson would never forget .

    “I was watching it sitting with my dad, and we were like, Wow,” Wilson said.

    On Thursday night, perhaps a teenager somewhere in Texas felt the same way.

    On the same field as Beckham’s catch, in the same end zone, Wilson jumped with his legs spread and his right arm reaching for the ball. Michael Jordan’s silhouette came to life at MetLife Stadium. On third-and-9, with the Jets trailing 10–7 early in the fourth quarter, Aaron Rodgers threw the ball over, and Wilson went up and grabbed the ball with one hand, right in front of Texans cornerback Kamari Lassiter. Wilson’s right foot touched, then his right shin.

    Initially it was considered incomplete. Jets interim coach Jeff Ulbrich threw his red challenge flag. Wilson’s teammates began celebrating. Wilson said he told them to “chill,” to wait for officials to make a ruling.

    “I was like, I hope that counts,” Wilson said. “I hope it’s not one of those things where I have to think, what if?”

    Ulbrich said he told an official: “For the sake of posterity, you have to say that it is the case that it will go down in history. It would match Odell’s catch.”

    On closer examination: Touchdown.

    “He’s a special player,” Tyler Conklin said, “and special players make special plays.”

    The Jets were in a spiral going into Thursday night, on a five-game losing streak and a 2-6 record — it felt like hope was lost. Then, in a star-studded performance, Wilson made one of the most impressive catches the NFL has ever seen, breathing some life into a moribund season. That touchdown, Wilson’s second one-handed TD catch of the night, put them up 14-10. The Jets won 21–13, Ulbrich’s first victory as head coach.

    “It was a bit of a season-long game there in the second half,” Rodgers said. “Obviously mathematically we wouldn’t have been eliminated, but mentally it would have been really tough to go to 2-7. Hopefully this gives us confidence that we can beat anyone, because we feel like we can.”

    The Jets wore black uniforms Thursday night. They’re glad it didn’t become a funeral for their season, although it certainly felt like things were headed that way at halftime.

    On the Jets’ first offensive play of the game, Rodgers missed an open Davante Adams on the right sideline, a play that would have resulted in a huge gain, perhaps a touchdown. Running back Breece Hall dropped a pass on second down, then Rodgers was sacked on third down. Fans booed.

    Early in the second quarter, the team celebrated what appeared to be rookie wide receiver Malachi Corley’s first NFL touchdown, on a 19-yard end-around. But Corley let go of the ball as he was about to enter the end zone. Upon review, it was instead ruled a fumble, and because the ball was ignored as it slowly rolled out of the back of the end zone, it became a turnover and a touchback.

    Rodgers called it a “foolish play.” Ulbrich admitted he was “angry” and “frustrated” by the mistake. His message to Corley: “First of all, you can’t do that. Second, you owe us.”

    “S—happening,” Conklin said. “The most important thing we talk about as a team is: how do we deal with setbacks? If something goes wrong, how should we respond?”

    After the teams traded three-and-outs and the game was still scoreless, the frustrated home crowd got a much-needed highlight from an unlikely source: gambler Thomas Morstead. His 75-yard punt rolled until Jarrick Bernard-Converse smothered it at the Texans’ 2-yard line. But Houston turned around with a 14-play, 98-yard scoring drive, capped by a Joe Mixon touchdown, to open the scoring.

    After the two-minute warning, some Jets fans loudly chanted “sell the team,” aimed at owner Woody Johnson. Some wore paper bags on their heads. Just before halftime, Texans kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn missed a long field goal, putting the Jets at midfield (their own 46) with 22 seconds and three timeouts to work with, but forcing an Adams fall a punt from midfield. The Jets went into the locker room trailing 7-0, even though it felt like they should have lost by a lot more. Rodgers struggled, completing 7 of 14 passes for 32 yards and no touchdowns. “I was terrible,” the quarterback said. It felt like yet another new low in a season full of them.

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    Everyone in the locker room remained positive. Offensive tackle Morgan Moses gave a speech to the offense about how “the defense played the lights out, and now it’s our time to shine,” he said.

    “We had a hard time getting on the same page at first, just all over the place,” Adams said. “Finding a rhythm is something that is important. The fans, as you heard, wanted a show. We came out stumbling a bit. We came out, gathered, discussed some things, everyone relaxed a bit.

    In the first half, Adams felt “a sense of – almost too much urgency. Every time we go there it’s ‘do or die’. You want to maximize your chances, but you don’t want to feel like you’re under pressure and people are making huge efforts to score. The ball started coming to the playmakers and the guys were making plays.”

    More specifically, the ball went to Wilson.

    His first touchdown might have been what everyone is still talking about if the second TD didn’t overshadow it. On the opening drive of the second half, the Jets worked their way up the field by leaning on running backs Hall and Braelon Allen, plus completions to Wilson (for 8 yards), Adams (12) and Mike Williams (6). On a second-and-12, Rodgers threw for Wilson on a pass when Texans defensive back Jalen Pitre tried to undercut the route. Wilson extended his right arm and grabbed it with one hand, running it the rest of the way for a 21-yard touchdown.

    On the next drive, the Jets had a fourth-and-1 at the Texans’ 48-yard line and went for it. Rodgers snapped the ball and quickly threw it to Adams, who had gotten open with an impressive release at the line of scrimmage. He came up with it — the first of two moments reminiscent of their years together in Green Bay, and the first time they’ve found that connection together with the Jets. Adams left the game briefly to be monitored for a concussion, one of several Jets players to leave Thursday’s game due to injuries. At various points, cornerbacks Sauce Gardner and DJ Reed, defenseman Will McDonald, guard John Simpson and guard Jake Hanson all left with injuries.

    Adams, Reed, Gardner and McDonald all returned, but Simpson and Hanson did not, forcing rookie tackle Olu Fashanu into his very first reps at right guard, a position he had never practiced or played in his life. Play-to-play, Joe Tippmann told Fashanu what to do and where to line up. Meanwhile, backup tackle Max Mitchell came into contact with the left guard. It worked. In the second half, the offensive line played mostly well.

    However, Fashanu was called for an ill-timed holding penalty a few plays after Adams was fouled out, negating an impressive 13-yard Rodgers scramble on a third-and-9. But no matter: on third-and-9, Wilson came through with The Catch.

    “Before the snap I knew it was third and extra long,” Rodgers said. “I looked at the weak-side safety and thought, ‘If he falls at all, I’m just going to say, fuck it; I’m going to hand it over to (Wilson).” I felt like I put it in a decent spot, but yeah, I didn’t do much when it came down to it. I just lobbed one up. He made an unbelievable catch.”

    Hall added, “I saw Garrett catch it and I knew it was in. And then I turned to the Texans sideline and just smiled and laughed at them.”

    Suddenly the Jets were rolling. The offense was on the move while the defense dominated, two units playing well together at the same time, a rarity for this team. Ulbrich rediscovered his groove as a defensive play-caller, stifling Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud for the second straight year. Stroud completed 11 of 30 passes for 191 yards and no touchdowns — a year after completing 10 of 23 for 90 yards and no touchdowns in a loss to the Zach Wilson-led Jets. Stroud was hit 11 times and sacked eight times: twice by Micheal Clemons, twice by Jamien Sherwood and 1 1/2 times by Quinnen Williams. Stroud was pressured 26 times.

    “They were standing on their heads,” Rodgers said of the defense. “They were incredible.”

    For good measure, Rodgers connected with Adams again on a game-clinching 37-yard touchdown with 2:56 left, a vintage Rodgers-to-Adams moment where the ball was out of Rodgers’ hand almost immediately after he hit the shotgun -snap had taken. . Adams got behind the defensive back, caught him and ran in for an easy touchdown.

    On the way off the field, Rodgers looked at Ulbrich and told him: That was for you. Ulbrich received the game ball in the locker room and took it with him to his post-match press conference.

    “He deserved it,” Moses said. “We’ve been talking about it all week: it starts with him. The energy he brings to the practice field with us every day – and just the love, the love and respect, that drives us to work together as one unit. It’s a great feeling. We just have to keep the ball rolling.”

    Ulbrich added: “That’s special to me just because of what it represents to this team.”

    What it represents: Hope, even if just for a week, that this season isn’t completely lost.

    “We won,” said Wilson, who finished with 90 yards on nine catches. “In the end we won. We want to start a run and the only way to do that is to win one.”

    As for his catch, Wilson said he felt “honored” that his catch was even mentioned in the same breath as Beckham’s. When reminded that the Giants actually lost that game to the Cowboys in 2014, Wilson smiled.

    “You know what, okay,” he said. “Reasonable.”

    (Top photo: Ed Mulholland / Imagn Images)

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