Jets Steal Victory in Wild Finish Over Giants

 

With 28 seconds to go, and leading the New York Jets 10-7, the New York Giants faced a choice. Either kick a field goal to extend their lead on a sloppy Sunday afternoon to 13-7, or go for it and win the game outright.

Brian Daboll will likely wrestle with that decision all night, heck maybe all week. The Giants sent kicker Graham Gano out to kick the field goal, and he missed badly, giving the Jets a glimmer of hope with 24 seconds to go.  There was no way Zach Wilson, who couldn’t figure out the Giants exotic blitzes would lead a miracle finish? No chance? Right?

 

The Giants had a 96 percent chance of winning at this point. Then a miracle happened.

Wilson rolled out and hit Garrett Wilson for 29 yards. Then he rolled out again with 18 seconds to go and hit Allen Lazard in the middle of the field to the Giants 17. Wilson hurried his unit to the line of scrimmage and spiked the ball with one second to go.  Like something out of a story book, Greg Zuerlein nailed a 33-yard field goal to tie it at 10 and force overtime.

In overtime, the Jets benefited from a huge pass interference call on A’Doree Jackson, spotting the ball at the Big Blue 15. That set up the game winner by Zuerlein as the Jets escaped 13-10.

 

 The victory by the Jets was a total stunner. Zach Wilson had played poorly all afternoon. The Jets were 1-for-13 on third downs before their miracle finish. Not only was Wilson inaccurate at times, he wasn’t helped out by his offensive coordinator, who called pass plays on third and short multiple times, and the Jets were down to a practice squad player at center before halftime.

 If the Jets have problem at quarterback with the poor play of Zach Wilson, the Giants have a mess. Already without Daniel Jones, the Giants lost Tyrod Taylor in this game with a rib injury. Tommy DeVito had to come in and play quarterback for most of the game and was bad. He completed only two passes on seven attempts for minus one yard. In fact, the Giants threw for minus eight yards all day.

 

 It was a rough day for the Jets. Not only were they this close to losing a game where their opponent threw for minus-eight yards, but the lack of discipline was appaling. The Jets were flagged nine times for 85 yards. None bigger than the two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties for targeting that assisted the Giants on their lone touchdown drive.