After a horrible way watching whatever you could call that Pittsburgh Steelers game, I sat down to watch my third football game of the day as the Kansas City Chiefs and New York Jets were set to battle it out on Sunday Night Football.
Let’s be honest, no one really expected this to be a game. An anemic Jets offense having to deal with Chris Jones and the Kansas City defense, not to mention the always dangerous Patrick Mahomes on the other side of the ball leading KC.
Jets quarterback Zach Wilson went into this game under the microscope. The second overall pick by the Jets back in 2021, Wilson hadn’t had an easy go around in the NFL so far.
Starting 13 games in his rookie season, Wilson went just 3-10 in those games, while leading the league in yards lost on sacks, although that’s also an indictment on New York’s offensive line.
Last season, Wilson was benched midway through the year in favor of cult hero Mike White.
Then, in the offseason, after White departed in free agency, the Jets decided Wilson couldn’t be the guy right now to continue leading the Jets offense, helping prompt New York’s acquisition of Aaron Rodgers.
But as we know, Rodgers went down just 75 seconds into his Jets debut and is out for the season, although Rodgers himself has expressed hope that with a rigorous recovery grind, he can step back on the field before 2023 is out.
Now, Wilson is thrown back onto the field and tasked with leading a Jets team that had Super Bowl aspirations to begin the season.
Unfortunately for Zach, it hadn’t gone well AT ALL to start. After doing literally the bare minimum to help New York beat Buffalo in Week 1, the 24 year old Wilson stumbled through his next two games, completing just 47.62% of his passes and only throwing 1 touchdown, while getting picked off 3 times. He was also sacked 6 times.
But on Sunday night, Zach Wilson did everything he could to prevent NBC from showing Taylor Swift all night, in what was probably the best game of his career.
Wilson, like every game so far this season, started out rather slow, and with several quick outs to begin the game, the Jets defense got tired and surrendered a damning early 17-0 lead to the Chiefs.
As the Jets continued to sputter, it looked as though MetLife Stadium was in for a long night, but in the wackiest scenario possible, the Jets offensive push gets kickstarted by a safety.
After a facemask penalty was called in the endzone against Kansas City, New York is awarded 2 points on the board and the ball back.
Maybe it was the sight of not having a 0 on the board, or maybe it was all the moms in the stands, but either way, Zach Wilson started to turn things around.
Wilson comes out firing on the second snap of the drive, delivering a 14 yard shot to Garrett Wilson for a first down.
On the very next play, Wilson throws a near 40 yard pass to Allen Lazard to get New York in field goal range.
Two short passes and an incomplete later, the Jets are forced to settle for the kick, but you can feel the confidence and momentum building, now at 17-5.
And that momentum goes for the defense as well. On KC’s first drive after the safety, Mahomes gets picked on the first snap by Ashtyn Davis, setting up the Jets with great field position.
This drive was less flashy for Wilson, but he did what he needed to do to help the Jets score their first touchdown of the game, and bring the score to 17-12.
As Kansas City often does, they rebound almost instantly, cobbling together a field goal drive to make it an 8 point game.
Wilson is able to divy up a few short passes on the ensuing drive, but it stalls near midfeld, forcing Jets head coach Robert Saleh to try a very long field goal, one that Greg Zuerlein bonks off the upright. It may have earned points on the impressiveness scoresheet, but on the MetLife Stadium scoreboard, that’s good for 0.
But Mahomes himself was far from mistake-proof that night. He gets picked again right before the half is out, evident that even though he was still very good in this game, he was certainly not perfect.
Going into the half down by just one score to the defending Super Bowl champs had to have had the Jets feeling good, and they proved that with the way they started the second half.
Wilson came out blazing, firing a 25 yard pass to Tyler Conklin to open the drive. Wilson followed that up with bullets to Lazard for 12 yards, Ruckert for 23 yards, and eventually, another 10 yard shot to Lazard in the endzone for a touchdown.
His touchdown to Lazard was an abslute beauty, perfectly placing the ball where only his receiver could get it.
Wilson runs it in himself for the conversion and all the sudden, we have a 20-20 ballgame.
No one would have predicted the Jets being this close in the game, especially after being down 17 points.
The Jets and Chiefs traded back and forth punts twice before KC was able to put together a field goal drive to reclaim the lead.
And here is where, tragically, Zach Wilson makes his only real mistake of the game. After nailing three completions on the drive, Wilson bobbles the snap, and as it falls out of his hands and onto the ground, he can’t recover the ball.
Kansas City does, and takes possession on the turnover.
I felt absolutely awful for the kid. Before the game, and I was hoping he’d do well. By halftime, I was openly rooting for him.
And he had come so close to knocking off the defending Super Bowl champions.
Mahomes and the Chiefs offense were successfully able to run out the remaining 7+ minutes left in the fourth quarter, but not without controversy. Mahomes was picked for a third time in the game, but a VERY controversial holding penalty on New York’s Sauce Gardner negated that.
The biggest source of criticism for this call stems from the fact that the referee only threw the flag after the Jets had intercepted the ball, despite the foul in question happening several seconds prior.
This, plus a missed offensive holding penalty prior, prompted an irate Robert Saleh let the officials here it after the Chiefs were able to retain possession, and Kansas City ran the clock down to all zeros.
In need of one final first down near the goal line, Mahomes ran for the line to gain, but slid down in bounds before the endzone, which to Patrick’s credit, was an incredibly smart play, allowing the Chiefs to ice it then and there as opposed to giving the Jets a chance at a miracle.
A dejected Zach Wilson watched from the sidelines as Mahomes killed the game, visibly saying “I lost the game, it’s my fault bro.”
But Wilson didn’t lose the game. He played phenomenally.
He finished the day with 28/39 completed passes for 245 yards and 2 touchdowns. That late game fumble hurts, but he played more than well enough. to help his team win.
He went toe-to-toe with the best quarterback in the league, and actually out-dueled Mahomes in the game, at least statistically.
A late game penalty by the defense, however controversial, helped ice the game for Kansas City, who were able to overcome some of the hurdles Mahomes had given them.
For Wilson’s part, he deserved to have several more completions, but drops at key times by New York receivers, including one in the endzone, hampered the Jets offense when they needed it most.
He’s been the subject of a lot of hate recently, both by Jets fans and the national football media, and maybe he’s earned a lot of that.
But he wasn’t expecting to play this year, and now all of the sudden he’s being counted on to be the guy. He played with a lot of fight and heart in Sunday’s loss.
Even after the game, NBC’s Rodney Harrison laid into Wilson, trying to bait KC’s Chris Jones into ragging on him as well. To Jones’ credit, he didn’t take the bait, instead usng it as an opportunity to praise Wilson’s play.
He was a lot of fun to watch on Sunday night, and to be honest, seeing the way he blamed himself for the loss made me sad, because he truly did play a great game.
He’s the very definition of an underdog story, and although the beginning was rather rough, here’s to hoping Sunday night was the confidence boost he needed to get his game back.
He has the talent, it’s just a matter of confidence and getting everything to click at once.
I want him to succeed, now more than ever, and I’m really rooting for this kid.
Fifth Avenue Sports 
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