EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — It was 10 years ago when Kenneth Wilson, a Cowboys fan, sat down with his 14-year-old son Garrett to watch “Sunday Night Football” from their living room couch in Austin, Texas. The matchup: Cowboys at Giants.
When Odell Beckham Jr. leapt and reached back for an Eli Manning deep ball, his right arm fully extended as he secured it with one hand, it was a moment etched in NFL history, and one Garrett Wilson would never forget.
“I was watching it, sitting with my pops, and we were just like: Wow,” Wilson said.
On Thursday night, maybe, somewhere in Texas, a teenager felt the same way.
On the same field as Beckham’s catch, in the same end zone, Wilson leapt, legs spread out and his right arm reaching for the ball, the Michael Jordan silhouette come to life at MetLife Stadium. On third-and-19, with the Jets trailing 10-7 early in the fourth quarter, Aaron Rodgers threw it up, and Wilson went up and grabbed it with one hand, right in front of Texans cornerback Kamari Lassiter. Wilson’s right foot touched, then his right shin.
(after review) HOLY ONE-HAND GARRETT FREAKING WILSON TOUCHDOOOOOWN❕❕❕#HOUvsNYJ on @NFLonPrime pic.twitter.com/htLVwK7TA6
— New York Jets (@nyjets) November 1, 2024
Initially, it was ruled incomplete. Jets interim coach Jeff Ulbrich threw his red challenge flag. Wilson’s teammates started to celebrate. Wilson said he told them to “chill,” to wait until the officials made a ruling.
“I was like: I hope that one counts,” Wilson said. “I hope it’s not one of those I gotta be like: What if?”
Ulbrich said he told an official: “For the sake of posterity, you have to say that it is in just so it goes down in history. It would rival the Odell catch.”
Upon further review: Touchdown.
“He’s a special player,” tight end Tyler Conklin said, “and special players make special plays.”
The Jets were spiraling as they headed into Thursday night, on a five-game losing streak and with a 2-6 record — it felt like hope was lost. Then, in a star-making performance, with one of the most impressive catches the NFL has ever seen, Wilson injected some life into a dying season. That touchdown, Wilson’s second one-handed TD catch of the evening, put them up 14-10. The Jets won 21-13, Ulbrich’s first win as head coach.
“It was kind of season-on-the-line there in the second half,” Rodgers said. “Obviously, we wouldn’t have been mathematically eliminated, but mentally, to go to 2-7 would have been real, real tough. Hopefully this gives us confidence that we can beat anybody — because we feel like we could.”
The Jets wore black uniforms on Thursday night. They’re happy it didn’t end up a funeral for their season — though, at halftime, it sure felt it was headed that way.
On the Jets’ first offensive play of the game, Rodgers badly missed an open Davante Adams up the right sideline, a play that would’ve been a huge gainer, perhaps a touchdown. Running back Breece Hall dropped a pass on second down, and then Rodgers was sacked on third down. Fans booed.
Early in the second quarter, the team celebrated what seemed 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 cross into the end zone. Upon review it was instead ruled a fumble, and with the ball ignored as it slowly rolled out of the back of the end zone, it became a turnover and a touchback.
TD @CorleyMalachi!!#HOUvsNYJ on @NFLonPrime pic.twitter.com/PSt7uVeRru
— New York Jets (@nyjets) November 1, 2024
Rodgers called it a “silly play.” Ulbrich admitted he was “angry” and “frustrated” at the mistake. His message to Corley: “First of all, you can’t do that. Second of all, you owe us one.”
“S— happens,” Conklin said. “The big thing we talk about as a team is how do we answer adversity? When things go wrong, how do we answer it?”
After the teams traded three-and-outs, the game still scoreless, the frustrated home crowd got a much-needed highlight from an unlikely source: punter Thomas Morstead. His 75-yard punt rolled until Jarrick Bernard-Converse smothered it at the Texans’ 2-yard line. But Houston turned right 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,” directed at owner Woody Johnson. Some were wearing paper bags on their heads. Just before halftime, Texans kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn missed a long field goal, setting the Jets up at midfield (their own 46) with 22 seconds and three timeouts to work with, but an Adams drop forced a punt from midfield. The Jets went into the locker room trailing 7-0, though it felt like they should have been losing by much more. Rodgers was struggling, completing 7 of 14 passes for 32 yards and no touchdowns. “I was terrible,” the quarterback said. It felt like yet another new low point in a season full of them.
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In the locker room, everyone stayed positive. Offensive tackle Morgan Moses made a speech to the offense about how the “defense was playing lights out, and now it’s our time to shine,” he said.
“We had trouble getting on the same page, just all around, at the beginning,” Adams said. “Finding a rhythm is something that’s important. The fans, as you heard, wanted a show. We came out tripping a little bit. We came out, rallied, talked through some stuff, everybody relaxed a little bit.”
In the first half Adams “felt a sense of — almost too much urgency. It’s do or die every single time we go out there. You want to maximize your opportunities but you don’t want to be out there feeling like you’re pressing and people are trying to make herculean efforts to score. The ball started coming to the playmakers and guys made plays.”
More specifically: The ball started going 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 crosser as 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.
ONE-HANDED GARRETT WILSON TOUCHDOWN 🚨#HOUvsNYJ on @NFLonPrime pic.twitter.com/rvDWanuax5
— New York Jets (@nyjets) November 1, 2024
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 for Adams, who had come open with an impressive release at the line of scrimmage. He came down 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 checked for a concussion, one of many Jets players to leave the game on Thursday due to injuries. At various points, cornerbacks Sauce Gardner and D.J. Reed, defensive end Will McDonald, guard John Simpson and guard Jake Hanson all left with injuries.
Adams, Reed, Gardner and McDonald all returned, but Simpson and Hanson didn’t, forcing rookie tackle Olu Fashanu into his first-ever reps at right guard, a position he’d never practiced or played in his life. Play-to-play, Joe Tippmann was telling Fashanu what to do and where to line up. Meanwhile, reserve tackle Max Mitchell plugged in at left guard. It worked. In the second half, the offensive line mostly played well.
Fashanu, however, was called for an ill-timed holding penalty a few plays after Adams went out, negating an impressive 13-yard Rodgers scramble on a third-and-9. But no matter: On third-and-19, Wilson came through with The Catch.
“Before the snap I knew it was third-and-extra-long,” Rodgers said. “I was looking at the weak-side safety, I was like, ‘If he drops down at all, I’m just going to say screw it; I’m going to throw it up to (Wilson).’ I felt like I put it in a decent spot, but yeah, I didn’t do a whole lot when it comes down to it. I just kind of lobbed one up there. He made an unbelievable catch.”
Added Hall: “I saw Garrett catch it and I knew it was in. And then I turned at the Texans sideline and was just smiling and laughing at them.”
All of a sudden, the Jets were rolling. The offense was moving while the defense was dominating, two units playing well together at the same time, a rarity for this team. Ulbrich rediscovered his groove as the defensive play-caller and stifled star Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud for the second straight year. Stroud completed 11 of 30 passes for 191 yards and no touchdowns — one 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 stood on their head,” 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 remaining, a vintage Rodgers-to-Adams moment on which the ball was out of Rodgers’ hand almost immediately after he took the shotgun snap. Adams got behind the defensive back, caught it and ran in for an easy touchdown.
🚨RODGERS TO ADAMS TOUCHDOWN 🚨#HOUvsNYJ on @NFLonPrime pic.twitter.com/e2Mpue8pp8
— New York Jets (@nyjets) November 1, 2024
On the way off the field, Rodgers looked at Ulbrich and told him: That one was for you. Ulbrich was given the game ball in the locker room and carried it with him to his postgame news conference.
“He deserved it,” Moses said. “We talked about it all week: It starts with him. The energy he brings to the practice field every day with us — and just the love, the love and regard, getting us just to band together as one unit. It’s an amazing feeling. We just gotta keep the ball rolling now.”
Added Ulbrich: “That’s a special one for me just because of what it represents with 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. “At the end of the day, we won. We want to start a run and the only way to do it is to win one.”
As for his catch: Wilson said he felt “honored” that his was even being 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, all right,” he said. “Fair enough.”
(Top photo: Ed Mulholland / Imagn Images)
