Digs in motion from right to left. Alan In the shot gun takes a snap. Poor man look looks right throughth like sideline.
The acept it again by Jordan whitehad he's got a hat stick Jordan White hand with his third pick of the knife.
The Jets get the takeaway at the four yard line, second down and goal. Zack Wilson drops back love left for Garrett Wilson.
Gor here the Jackie's got it.
That's the get clutch down, get red Wilson. What an awful lavable self tip the one handed stack and the Jets horre a point after away from a tie.
Robert slip really call time out. The snap, the placement down, the kick is on the way, It's got plenty of distance.
It hits the upright and go through.
It's gone. Tyler Fans hit the left right and got the right, Carol.
It snuck through the forks and we are tied with two seconds to go. He snap and getting away a line drive kicking. Sam Martin gives some runs under it at the jet thirty five starts to his left, gets to the forty, turns the corner hat the forty five.
Thinking flock is it gon not the forty pp the pills thirties picks out the twenty step A step to.
The time to the five touchdown. It's a Jet touchdown. This game is over. Roll a waiter and Monday Night Football. Climpton's gonna take this.
We're back sixty through look for the touchdown.
One of the last players to make the Jet roster out of training camp just took.
It to the house to wait it over.
Time for the Jets.
Boba Susan and Marty Lyons Jets Radio. It started out as the most anticipated night in the history of the New York Jets, before quickly turning into maybe the biggest nightmare the organization has ever faced, playing out on prime time to the horror of me and countless other Jets fans who are still processing with the fallout of what certainly seems like the end of the road for Aaron Rodgers in twenty twenty three after suffering a torn Achilles tendon or that's the fear here on the fourth snap
of the game. Almost impossible to think about it, but that is the reality of the situation. And to the credit of the Jets and their coaching staff and that team, they battled back and at least could call it a pyrrhic victory, but it was something that I'll always remember.
Twenty two to sixteen overtime win on.
Over the rival Bills, with Xavier Gibson taken back the punt return sixty five yards to the house. Dan Hans is here with Mark Sessler and Greg Rosenthal. Oh what a roller coaster. I mean a roller coaster. They haven't invented the ride yet. Boys to properly explain the feeling that I have right now, but yeah, that's life, that's sports.
It is sports, and it's like it even as a non Jets fans. It's a weird moment to process it as a football fan and watching this because actually, as I walked up the stairs an NFL that work, I hadn't seen the postgame press conference, and it felt like such a special moment for the Jets because it's everything
that sports is. It's brutal that Rogers left so quickly and frustrating, and you want to just curse the gods, and you're watching Zach Wilson and you're so angry about that, and then the game ended up being just the stupid performance by Josh Allen and this beautiful performance by the Jets, and they end up winning on that special teams and their defense and their offense and even Breese Hall coming back, and it actually felt kind of amazing and beautiful, even
if Robert Salas says he wanted to enjoy it. And by the time I walked upstairs, you hear Robert sala basically confirm the worst and that they expect it to be confirmed. And you're kind of right back where you started. He says he's going to enjoy it tonight, But I know it's gonna be hard for Jets fans, for you too, Dan.
I mean from a holistic team angle, and we learned about the Jets and who they are so much over the past month and a half. You just look at like what Jordan Whitehead did tonight and Quincy Williams and Garrett Wilson's absolutely incredible touchdown grab, like there's so much
hope inside this organization kind of no matter what. But like I walked up those steps today too, and I walked up the with Dan and like, I'm just like, we it's so it's so absurd to me, Dan, like conversation we had where we're just like this is this we've been you have been through so much with the Jets, and like I went through with the Browns in my own way, and like we were like, tonight will be different.
It has to be because of so many factors that suggest that, and I don't know, you know, like, yeah, the other events of this game, because I like, I'm a note taker and so I'm like taking endless notes about what's happening on snap after snap, and it's like the minute what happened to Aaron Rodgers, you know, after he's like essentially bulldoze three snaps in a row and then he's gone. It's like I don't, I don't. Yeah,
it's like, cool, your house burned down. Then the ice cream man drove up and gave you a free snow cone. But it's like, it's a nice victory for the Jets. It says a lot about who they are. But I don't think that if you're like, the guy that gave the middle finger is basically all of all of football fans that have been through a tough time.
And I feel for you, Dan.
I appreciate that market and I did think about that conversation as well.
After we finished the podcast. In the NFL Plus taping.
We walked up the steps and headed out towards the parking lot and we're talking and you asked me how I was feeling about the game, and I was having a lot of anxiety about it and it was building. And I said this to Colleen on the end of the Hard Knocks run, that the excitement wasn't there as much as just this feeling that I had, knowing the way things go as a fan of the Jets, that like the summer, and that's how I kind of said
it on the show. The summer was special, and people got annoyed with me and got annoyed with the coverage of the Jets, but I like savored every moment of the summer and the spring and the hype around the team because A it didn't happen a lot. It hasn't happened a lot with this team, and B I knew from experience that these things they don't tend to always work out. And you know, of course, I'm going to go on the on the show last week and say that Jests are gonna win the super Bowl because that's
the type of fan I am. I always hope for the best, but that annoying anxiety that I had was the very real feeling that something was gonna happen. And I said it to you Mark this afternoon. This morning, I said, I can I'll be okay if this season ends with Rogers not playing at a high level and the Jets being a disappointment. And then, but at least you took a shot, and it made sense. The logic checked out, as I said over and over this summer, the logic checks out that this is a big time team.
What I wouldn't be able to live with is something bad happening, an injury early on happening, and damn it if it's not a torn achilles. And let me tell you something about torn achilles, because that's something that is personal to me as well.
This summer, I.
Was with my father on vacation in Texas and watched him tear his achilles right in front of me. And I watched the way he limped to the car after it happened.
And I learned that.
Day that oh, you could tear your achilles and still walk, you just have a bad limp. And I saw him get off that cart in a bad limp, and I was like, Oh, God, is that what it could be. And then when you heard the chefter reporting and the talk about the calf ripple that.
It just felt, you know, it felt bad.
And then I started texting the Insiders Ian and Mike g and I was asking for you know, tell me some good news, and and Garafalo, who is a really good guy and he knows that, you know, I'm a New York, New Jersey guy, and I said, I said to Mike, sorry, I got a lot of text tonight. I said to Mike at seven fourteen, tell me it's not over, and he wrote, I can't uh, and he was.
He was at the scene tonight.
And the Achilles is also a conversation I had hours
before the kickoff. I was texting with some family from back home, fellow torture Jets fans, and I said, even though you know, in terms of anticipation and excitement for the Jets, nothing's ever gonna top when you're young, So I'll for me the nineteen ninety nine season when they were coming off the AFC title game appearance, and they had parcels and Belichick and Elway had retired, and Vinnie was there a top quarterback and Keishaan was there, and the idea of that season was the Jets were the
favorites to go to the Super Bowl. They played the Patriots in Week one and Vinnie Testaverdi dropped back on a handoff. The snap led to a fumble. On the handoff, he lurched forward toward the ball, and he tore his achilles tendon in Week one game one of the most hotly anticipated Jets season of that decade.
For it to happen the.
Same injury the same week of the season, after the same, if not more so hype, I'm not feeling sorry for myself and Jets fans. No, it's hard not to feel sorry for yourselves and feel like you're cursed. And then you got to deal with a night of Twitter of people just making bits and jokes and like. But it's almost impossible to think that that happened and tonight and I'm still processing as we as we talk.
Right now, and I think I've been talking for like five minutes.
And I apologize, But it's almost possible that that happened tonight.
No, I wasn't texting, but I don't. I don't think you need to hear it. I almost feel like you don't need to hear from Mark and I too much on this show.
Thing.
If someone had told us, if somebody had told us four hours ago exactly what would happen in the next four hours, it just would not have believe it.
And I'll say one more thing, and this is that I didn't choose to be a Jets fan. I was born into it. I couldn't opt out of it if I wanted to. And again, people that listen to the show get annoyed that Dan talks about the Jets too much.
You know, they they're.
Either not relevant or now they're relevant, and he still talks about him too much. Well, that's just the way it is. That's why I do what I do. That's how I fell in love with sports, because I fell in love with the New York teams and the Jets and football.
They are my.
Team and I'm just living through it. And I got to say that, like as crushing as tonight is watching and I was catatonic. Boys, I literally when the when it happened, and you knew it was serious right away just by the way he reacted.
I didn't speak for two hours maybe.
And thank you, as my wife brings me a Tito's I don't know if that's legal, but I'm having one right now deserved.
I would say, I think that's legal.
What was were your was your family members?
Your kids?
Emily, so the kids, the kids after the injury, and Daddy got really intense and quiet.
They fleed the scene.
Emily, who's a big Hard Knocks fan and was super excited to watch this season the Jets with me this year, she was she went and was, you know, making dinner for the kids, and I just watched the game in silence. And you know, the way the game played out with the Jets falling behind, see not having a backup plan at all for Zach Wilson, and seeing how that game
plan was unfolding. You have Peyton Manning come on at halftime and say, you know, I got to you know, he couldn't even muster as a broadcaster, like any reason to continue watching the fact that they were able to get back into the game, and when they tie the game, and then now my sons are back in the living room with me and my wife and and in my dog, who's sensing a lot of energy and excitement, and then the field goal hits the upright and of course it
drops over the crossbar, and then for that punt, the release and the happiness in my house tonight, and the celebration of lifting up my kids and lifting up my dog and then us all collapsing together on the couch, Like that's that's what sports is. And like the season is lost, like the Jets, this is gonna be another year. It's gonna be fifty five years without a Super Bowl. But I think I kind of learned something tonight about like why I love sports, and because it's those moments.
It's like those special moments. So the season might not end in a special way, and I've already and every Jets fans more or less resigned themselves to that, but you got tonight, and tonight was a special game on nine to eleven. And my last kind of comment is, like, you can't take away what happened with Xavier Gibson there. You can't take away Aaron Rodgers running out of that tunnel with the American flag on the twenty second anniversary nine to eleven, Like those are two of my favorite
moments sports moments that I've ever had. The fact that it happened on this and that maybe the most crushing night in Jets history. I mean, it's it's it's Greek tragedy or whatever you want to call it, but it was.
It was a wild night here. It really was.
It really well said, and I think it does really get to what sports is. Like I was trying to say it, and you said it much more artfully, like that that moment was special, that there was something, and like, that's that's why we watch everything. And then you hear sala after the game. I guess we've gone on long enough. Let's let's hear Robert Salah talk to the media about Rogers is good?
How do you process your emotions right now?
Justly a great win for you guys, But the Aron.
Injury, Uh, that part sucks. I'm gonna enjoy this win. Winning in the NFL is hard, regardless of what the quarterback is personally. I don't hurt for me, I don't hurt for our locker room. I heard for Aaron and how much he's invested in all of this.
You know.
So I'm still gonna say prayer, I'm still gonna hold that home. But uh, you know, my my, my heart's with Aaron right now and nowhere else.
And that's the thing.
Like, by the way, I'm so oppressed with Robert Salad, not just as a coach, but just as a guy. How he answers these questions. He also, to start, didn't beat around the bush, basically said, you know, he thinks it's bad and and they'll wait tomorrow to have that confirm. But to have his team play that says a lot.
And he raised a good point. As as much as it sucks for everyone involved, man, it sucks for Aaron Rodgers who's turning forty later this year and is an all time great and has provided so many moments for us as fans, and he was so excited about this opportunity. Was really however it was going to turn out, it was gonna be fascinating in a totally different experience for him, and for him to have it cut short like it is, it is just brutal, and you feel for him.
The one thing though, I'd say, to your point, Dan, I love what you said in like, you know, like some of these teams that goes through the darkest moments, like they wind up in really mysterious, unexpected places.
I told you today about.
That Steelers team that lost fifty one nothing out of the gate and lost like thirty five nothing the next week, It's like this might be the worst team in football. And they went on and Damashek and I to talk about the Steelers team to have one of the most like incredible journeys. They weren't great, but they were the most lovable team of that entire season. And I'm saying
that about a Steelers team. It's just like the one thing I took away from the rest of the game tonight is like a week or team just collapses.
You want like the whole.
It seemed like Aaron Rodgers during Hard Knocks was like obviously the poll star, the sun. Everything's shown around him, maybe the only true adult almost in a way, and
it's like they looked up to him so much. But then the way they responded tonight and to do what they did to the Bills, there's still a lot going on with his team, and I get it, like the expectations are totally different, but it still remains the Jets in the future of the Jets and who they are, and like they're well coached, and like I think of both New York coaches what they've gone through this week and it's like I have a lot of faith in Robert Sala to.
Like continue to guide this journey.
I just do, and I kind of think, like it's not gonna It takes everything away from a Jets fan to to have what happened the first five six minutes of this game. But it's like football's weird, and maybe what comes out of this and what's birth, it's like the true Jets team. That's just thet It's just.
The one little kernel of hope I put in there that like there.
May be this other journey that we didn't expect and it might be the most special path there could be.
I love it. I love the idea of it. Mark, I see the way.
And this is the other thing that you know, I said numerous points in the spring and summer that I was never comfortable that Zach Wilson was just like plopped in at the number two quarterback spot because it was an older quarterback, because he had failed so spectacularly. And I did sense at the and I understand it, like nobody could have imagined that the horror of what happened there on that first drive. But you saw the way Nate Hackett was just staring at that play sheet, just
trying to figure out what to use. They were not ready to deal with the Zach Wilson of it all. And I know he made a couple throws in this game. I'll cycle back to that ninety nine season again, because as the great Chris Westling, I'd love to hear from west tonight. By the way, the Great Chris Chris Westling
often said, history is instructive. The Jets, shell shocked after Vinnie Blue's achilles, turned to Rick Meyer, another former first round pick who washed out of Seattle, and he floundered for multiple leaks weeks, and they eventually turned to a kind of a gadget quarterback named Ray Lucas who with a lot of grit. I think they won six of their last nine games, and they went eight to eight
that season. And Rich Simini, who covers the Jets and knows Jets history better than anyone is, often wrote like, and Bill Parcells has set himself like that was his greatest coaching job. Was like getting that team after how crushing and how devastating Week one was to just compete and believe in themselves again and be a team that hung in games week after week. I think that's really like realistically for me, given that they don't have a
Kurt Warner on this roster that I know of. It is this idea of kind of leaning on this defense in this running game and and finding a way to hang around in the playoff race. They got to win today, and that would that defines success. Now you have to recalibrate that. And if the Jets would have lost twenty four to three tonight, I don't think anybody would have been surprised. I don't think anybody would even been down on the Jets because from where.
They waste to three, I had no belief that they were going to come back.
In this guy, I have so much, like I have so much admiration as you guys are saying, for the job of these players who just decided that they weren't going to be sad sacks here and just be part of this like incredibly frankly sad moment in the history of the organization. And they made it a special night for those eighty thousand people in the stadium who were just as shell shocked and people like me watching at home.
Should we talk a little bit about the bill side of this.
I don't know if you want to get into the jet. I do want to talk to the bill side in the game at some point. But while we're talking about the season ahead, the question's gonna quickly turn to if not Zack Wilson, and I know it'll be Zach Wilson next week, and they're gonna want Zack Wilson to work. But tonight was disturbing like he looked, he looked mostly like he.
And I was disturbing on so many levels right well, the sty whispers of Carson Wentz.
His performance was disturbing, and I know he made a couple throws later. But there was all the Zach Wilson stuff. There was the staring down interception. There was running backwards. I counted twenty nine yards behind the line of scrimmage on a screen pass. There was this crazy stuff. And everything you said about the eight and eight team I hear. But then I see this Jets defense which made Josh
Allen look like a fool. Four turnovers, eight quarterback hits, everything that they do, and that this could be the very best defense in the league. And then you saw Brees Hall tonight. What a special surprise, what a special player. Then you see here at Wilson make one of the catches of all time on a bad Zach Wilson throw that he turned into each other, and you think, what a special player, And you think these players deserve more
than Zach Wilson. And there are opportunities out there for an organization that is kind of all in and salary cap wise and all that stuff, and draft picks, like I would be willing to give up some sort of draft pick or something for a veteran that's better now, whether that's a free agent like Carson Wentz, whether that's a mid round pick for pick a name Jacoby Brissett,
Jamis Winston, Teddy Bridgewater. I know these aren't gonna get Jets fans excited, but I look at this roster and I think with a quarterback, maybe at that level, this is a team that can go out and compete every week and maybe make the playoffs and serve those other players better than sixteen weeks of Zack Wilson might. And it has to be a conversation in the Jets' front office in the next few.
D the ceiling, yeah, the ceiling to me with as currently constituted this roster, Zach Wilson is about eight wins, and I agree with you, like it would be a shame to waste another year of this defense being all together and being as talented they are, and potentially special running game with Breeze Hall, who still hasn't even Breeze Hall yet. I mean the fact that he got run down from behind on eighty three yards, that that was
telling he was not getting caught last year. Even that first initial run to the left side where he picked up about twenty you could tell he's not all the way back, and you just hope as the season goes along he does get all the way back, like I hear you, and I wonder. I just I get frustrated because this was always a possibility. This wasn't a remote possibility. There was always a decent chance that you would need
your number two quarterback to step in. And I just think they had this very cute, in my mind plan, which was Zach Wilson will sit behind Aaron Rodgers for one to three years, and then he will hand the reins over in twenty twenty six, and then he will he will fulfill his destiny as a good draft pick by the Jets. And I think They've left themselves very vulnerable here, and I think Nathaniel Hackett would admit that to you in private if you asked them.
But I like it, Greg I going after like a Jake Brisket.
It's not exciting, especially with the amount of excitement entering tonight, but that would give them a punter's chance to maybe get to ten wins, and.
They'd have to give a premium that they wouldn't have had to at some point obviously in the off season.
Well, they'll have a first round pick next year.
Well it can't. It can't be a first. He cannot be giving up first for these guys. But whether it's a third that like upgrades to a second depending on how he plays something like that. Like to me, it's a whole year of your life and they're a little screwed anyways that I think that'd be worth it for a mid round.
I don't make light of this, but I have my Matthew Stafford Sandwich props sitting out there. Probably the rams are too high on that situation, and after what happened against Seattle.
Oh wait one, but you're right, things can change in like five.
You never know.
But I think like so Carson Wentz has been mentioned. I don't love that for anyone, but why not. I'm with you, Dan, though, I think like it's one of these teams that it was kind of Aaron Rodgers or bust obviously at quarterbacks, so it's like they didn't do enough behind him, and this is an older quarterback that has had, you know, miss games here and there once in a while.
I don't know.
What else is there to say about this game, Like I think, I think we get the preview coming up with the Bills, and like I think that that this is a there's.
A lot of concern around Buffalo. We talked about it.
I know it's I know it got like totally panned, like not gonna do it, but like like I got totally panned, uh like when I mentioned this, but they looked like absolute junk in the preseason when the starters were out there, and I thought that something's going on with Josh Allen. He's also like his his turnover count over the last two seasons kind of gets washed away because of his incredible heroics. But this is another game where, like I mean some of the some of these like interceptions were.
Why about the way we talk about the Browns and Joe Burrows, how we should talk about Josh Allen and the Jets, though I will say that like, I'm very interested to see what version of Josh Allen shows up next week, because this was a game Buffalo had no business losing. Their opponent was shell shocked, lost their best player, the quarterback, and all you got to do is kind of play conservatively within your limits, hit a couple throws, don't give the team reason and that building reason to
wake back up. And I just thought it was a really foolishly played game in many respects by Allen. And I know that is something that's always been part of his DNA, but I would under like Eric Roberts, our producer, I'll be interested to talk to him when I see him again, Like you want this stuff to kind of phase out of his DNA as he gets older and starts to understand the mental cerebral side of the things. And yet he looked like he was year one or year two in this game.
That was the most chaotic Allen performance I can remember since that Texans off lost, which was kind of the moment where like all the Josh Allen detractors like myself at the time were just like, man, this guy's an insane person, Like he just made some insane decisions tonight. And give Jordan Whitehead credit. Especially the third interception was a beautiful play. And the Jets defense played with such ferocity and such physical nature when they were tackling all
over the field for minute one. I watched the game you know here with MGD and he was noticing it. Like Michael Clemens. Everyone was just hit and hitting. But a veteran quarterback that's played as much as Alan has to know the situations here that he was just giving points away in a game that they just needed to
get through. And he should have known better because he struggled against this team, as you mentioned, three straight times, He's had three touchdowns and five interceptions, been sacked I think thirteen times in the last three times, and he hasn't hit anything down the field. Anytime he tries to go down the field, he's struggled, and I thought he got over it. They had a nice clutch drive to four overtime where he made some nice throws and Digs
especially did a great job on that drive. But that's that's Alan, And the weird thing is it's not improving, and part of the Jets season now will be ruining other teams seasons. You you want to have as much fun as you can. You want to make the playoffs, but they can get some division wins like this. I mean, Bill's fans are dying here tonight because they got their own issues to deal with. As every Bills fan knows is our listeners know, and this is a season that's
so big to them. This is the worst possible way to start. It's losing to Zach Wilson at MetLife Stadium again.
I can think of a worse way to start. Okay, that's true, you know what I mean, though I didn't put Garrett Wilson in the Superstar club. By the way, it's crazy. That catch is crazy here, Troy.
I know everybody's excited, but Troy Aikman, do you hear what he said after it happened.
Oh yeah, the greatest young receiver that I've ever seen.
Yep, and he talked about seeing that year too.
Wow, I didn't hear that. That is I hate you don't want to like go crazy in the moment, but that's got to be on the list of like the twenty best touchdowns of all time ten. But I mean hands aren't supposed to work that way. He like backhanded it like it was like a like a volley to himself with the other side of his would would that it was like it was such a bad throw and it was just He's amazing.
I don't know, all right, anything else I'm about Dan.
I think we need to let you go off into I know Greg is gonna have another comment, but we need to let you go off into the distance and not enjoy this. Just ponder this, and yeah, this is it's a big You know, you showed up tonight. You could have ghosted us, but you didn't.
That would not have been an option. I know, you know it did.
Actually, honestly, during my catatonic state tonight, it did cross my mind to like.
Maybe able to sit this one out and talk.
I did think, well, if we did a podcast two days after West died, like and we talked about that, like, nothing is ever gonna be harder or crazier uh than that, So I could certainly talk about what happened to Aaron Rodgers and the jet streams tonight.
So let's see here on a positive note, just circling back to hard Knocks.
That's all.
I just want to hear from Robert Salad because as crazy as that game is, for it to end on Xavier Gibson of all people, after this build up to hard Knocks was a really special football moment. Let's hear Salah in that clip when when Gibson made the team for Bar Knocks.
Just want to let you know, man, your New York jest, you go, you're gonna you're gonna do a lot of good things for us to see.
You got you got something to you the way you approach a game with your intent, your mindset and all that stuff, Like, there's no in our mind that you're gonna maximize who you are. You're definitely one of us.
Beautiful, beautiful moment.
And hey, heads up, John Parry Rules Analyst, You're gonna come on the air to prove you're worth a paycheck and say you got to put an asterisk on that punt return on this night for that team.
I'll tell you where to put an asterisk. Take a walk, take a walk.
I'm gonna take a walk. It's like Aaron Rodgers ninety retired, he went in the darkness. I'm gonna take a walk with the captain and we're gonna think about everything that transpired tonight.
I'm this crazy, crazy heed the call