This is what happens when you make a group of starving football fans wait 54 weeks to catch their breath. This was the second half of the roar that had begun 374 days earlier, when Aaron Rodgers sprinted onto the field at MetLife Stadium, an American flag in his hands.

There were 83,345 people in attendance that night, and they were in ecstasy. MetLife Stadium had never felt such an electric shock. Maybe it was louder on Christmas Eve afternoon when Eli Manning found Victor Cruz for 99 yards, but that was cause and effect. On September 11, 2023, it was all about buildup. All about crescendo.

Back then it was all about silence.

Four snaps into the season, someone kicked a plug out of the wall. It took until last night to get the power back on. There were 80,812 in attendance this time. Finally, they got a chance to roar. Finally, they got a chance to growl. And the Jets gave them 60 solid minutes to do it. It ended 24-3, and it was every bit as tough a beating as the score indicates.

“I love the booing, I love the yelling,” said defensive end Will McDonald IV, two more sacks that night, one tackle for a loss, part of an ensemble of defensive ferocity that Pats quarterback Jacoby Brissett will watch in his sleep all weekend. “I love hearing it. We do it for them.”

The Jets scored three more touchdowns on Thursday night, the third straight game they’ve scored that many, and they hadn’t done it since … (looks at watch) … 1989. They hadn’t beaten the Patriots that convincingly since … (looks at watch again) … 1998, two years before the Pats hired the Jets’ defensive coordinator for that 31-10 victory, a man named Bill Belichick.

So if this is starting to feel like something different, something other, that’s because it is. Opening night in San Francisco suddenly feels a long time ago — even though it was only 11 days ago. The Week 2 escape in Nashville suddenly feels almost antiquated. The Jets didn’t play a perfect game, but it felt perfect, felt long overdue.

“That was a very special night,” Rodgers said, after a night in which he completed 27 of 35 passes for 281 yards and two touchdowns, a night in which he made about a half-dozen throws that perhaps a half-dozen quarterbacks who ever lived could have completed.

And on a couple of those throws that were a little high, a little low or a little wide, his receiving corps stepped in and caught most of them.

(Funny how a quarterback with Rodgers’ reputation inspires such sticky fingers; somewhere in Denver, Zach Wilson was probably shaking his head sadly, thinking, “Could’ve used a little of THAT last year”…)

“A very meaningful week,” Rodgers said.

And so it was for the Jets. They had a two-on-one time of possession advantage. They limited the Patriots to 139 yards, almost a third of that on the 46-yard drive in garbage time that decided the game. They were active, and they were aggressive, and they kept running the Pats off the field.

“I thought they were really good,” Jets coach Robert Saleh said of his defense. “We talk about a style of play and a standard game with relentless effort.” He got all that on Thursday.

And yes: Maybe you could qualify this by saying it’s “just the Patriots,” who by all accounts are supposed to be terrible to start the season. But then the Pats went to Cincinnati and beat Joe Burrow and the Bengals two weeks ago. Last week, they beat the Seahawks in Foxborough, Mass., let them come back late, and lost in OT.

They were so close to 2-0, the Jets made them look like a team with nothing to offer all night.

“It’s only three weeks, buddy,” Saleh said with a laugh.

But they’ve improved in each of those weeks. They’re headed north. They crushed the depleted 49ers in Week 1, and while the Titans threatened them in Week 2, they held on by their fingertips. Thursday’s defense was the equal of its reputation. And so was the quarterback.

“He may not be what he used to be,” Saleh said. “But he still has enough.”

Tight end Tyler Conklin (five catches, 93 yards) said: “We all know how great Aaron is. It’s so cool every week to see his progress. When we get halfway through the season, I can only imagine what it’s going to look like. He’s a Hall of Famer for a reason.”

There were also expectations surrounding this entire team, and for good reason. On Thursday, we got a tantalizing taste of what that might actually mean.