Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I thought I missed the most interesting part of Monday Night Football when I tuned in 10 minutes late last night. I was wrong.
In today’s SI:AM:
✈️ Jets’ outlook under Wilson
😔 A familiar feeling for Jets fans
🤦♂️ Josh Allen’s errors
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A pyrrhic victory for the Jets
Four plays were all it took for the Jets’ entire season outlook to change.
On the team’s fourth offensive snap of last night’s season opener against the Bills, Aaron Rodgers went down with an injury and was taken to the locker room on a cart. While New York went on to win in miraculous fashion (more on that later), it was a devastating way for the season and Rodgers’s Jets tenure to begin.
Here’s what we know now. Rodgers is believed to have torn his Achilles tendon, coach Robert Saleh said after the game. The quarterback will have an MRI today to confirm the diagnosis, but a season-ending injury is all but assured. In this video of the injury, you can see Rodgers’s calf ripple, just like Kevin Durant’s did when he tore his Achilles.
Zach Wilson replaced Rodgers at quarterback and, aside from a brutal interception late in the first half, did just enough to keep the Jets in the game. The return of running back Breece Hall, who tore his ACL midway through last season and ran for 127 yards on 10 carries last night, helped buoy the offense.
But it was the Jets’ defense that won them the game, forcing four Josh Allen turnovers: three interceptions by Jordan Whitehead and a fumble immediately after the Jets tied the game. The New York D stood tall again on the first possession of overtime, forcing the Bills into a three-and-out that led to Xavier Gipson’s stunning walk-off punt return touchdown.
It was a remarkable win for the Jets. Rodgers’s injury was gutting, but the team persevered and won in the most dramatic fashion imaginable—on the first overtime punt return TD in 12 years. But where will things go from here?
Unfortunately, the Jets are staring down another season like the last one. The defense is elite, but quarterback is a serious question mark. The QB situation is even worse than last year. Rodgers and Wilson are the only quarterbacks on the roster. As a reminder, Saleh benched a healthy Wilson last year after seven ineffective starts. The Jets turned to Mike White, who started three games before breaking his ribs and turning the reins back over to Wilson. But White is with the Dolphins now, and Joe Flacco, who started four games last season, is a 38-year-old free agent. That leaves Wilson at the helm going forward. The Jets will bring in another quarterback to back him up (Flacco probably makes the most sense, at least in the short term, since he’s unsigned and knows the system), but the fate of a season that began with Super Bowl hopes now rests in the hands of a guy who the team basically gave up on last year.
All hope isn’t lost for the Jets, though. Last night’s win was an impressive one. They maintained focus after watching their most important player suffer a season-altering injury and beat a quality opponent in a wacky game. If they can beat the Bills under those circumstances, there’s no reason to believe they can’t beat any other team on their schedule.
But it’s tough not to think about how differently the game would have gone with a healthy Rodgers. A team with even an average quarterback would have been able to easily win a game in which Allen turned the ball four times. But the Jets don’t have an average quarterback. They have Wilson, whose biggest play of the game was an off-target touchdown pass to Garrett Wilson that required a superhuman effort from the receiver. The defense will keep them in games, but easy wins should be few and far between.
The best of Sports Illustrated
Erick W. RASCO/Sports Illustrated
- For more on Zach Wilson and where the Jets go from here, check out Gilberto Manzano’s column on the much-maligned QB’s performance.
- Aaron Rodgers’s injury is just the latest misfortune for a snakebitten franchise, Conor Orr writes.
- Matt Verderame covered the game from the Bills’ perspective, writing that Josh Allen’s mental mistakes were the reason Buffalo couldn’t put the Jets away and that the coaching staff deserves part of the blame for those errors.
- Manzano spoke with Dolphins linebacker Bradley Chubb about how the Miami defense held together to get a game-winning stop against the Chargers.
- Albert Breer spoke with Derek Carr about picking up a big win in his first start with the Saints.
- What’s up with the SEC? The conference is 1–4 against ranked opponents this season, which Pat Forde argues should be a consideration when the College Football Playoff committee is seeding teams in a few months.
- Jimmy Traina mostly liked NFL Sunday Ticket’s new home on YouTube, but he found two issues with the new service.
- Tom Verducci explores everything that went wrong with the Padres this season.
The top five...
… things I saw last night:
5. Patrick Mahomes’s very important edit to his tweet about Aaron Rodgers.
4. Rockies outfielder Nolan Jones’s 102.7-mph throw to nail a runner at the plate.
3. Two home runs by Braves slugger Matt Olson to become the first player this season to reach 50.
2. Jets radio announcer Bob Wischusen’s call of Xavier Gipson’s game-winning punt return.
1. Garrett Wilson’s one-handed touchdown catch to tie the game.
SIQ
The last MLB home run to bounce in the field of play before going over the wall occurred on this day in which year?
- 1889
- 1913
- 1930
- 1944
Yesterday’s SIQ: On Sept. 11, 1966, John Miller became the first player in Yankees history to hit a home run in his first at bat. When did he hit his second home run?
- Later in that same inning
- In Game 7 of the World Series
- On the same day a year later
- In his final MLB game
Answer: In his final MLB game. Miller, who died in April at age 79, spent most of his career in the minors. The Yankees called him up in September 1966 as they limped to a last-place finish. He made his debut on Sept. 11 and hit a two-run homer off Lee Strange in his first turn at bat.
Before the start of the next season, Miller was traded to the Dodgers. He spent the 1967 and ’68 seasons in the minors and saw limited action in ’69 with Los Angeles. He didn’t hit much that season, but on Sept. 23, 1969, in what turned out to be the final plate appearance of his career, Miller hit the second homer of his career. (After being let go by the Dodgers, Miller spent three years in Japan, hitting 79 home runs.)
The only other player to hit a home run in his first and last career plate appearances was Paul Gillespie, a catcher with the Cubs in the ’40s. But Miller’s only two homers came in his first and last career plate appearances. What are the odds of that?
