Raiders head coach Jon Gruden spent the entire afternoon screaming and yelling at the refs and his football team, while the suddenly surging Jets became the first time in NFL history to score 34 points in three-straight games, as Gang Green slammed the Oakland Raiders 34-3 at a near empty MetLife Stadium, Sunday.
In a season that was lost long ago, the Jets clicked in every facet of the game for the third consecutive week with quarterback Sam Darnold leading the way. Darnold was near perfect, completing 20-of-29 passes for 315 yards, two touchdowns and a rushing score in the victory.For a team that has no discernible offensive line, and a bad running game, Darnold's resurgence has been something to watch. Four weeks ago when the Jets lost to Miami Dolphins 26-18, it appeared that Darnold was regressing, as heat was ratcheted up on head coach Adam Gase.
Since that time, Darnold has completed 65 percent of his passes while throwing for seven touchdowns and one interception.
A lot of that credit goes to Darnold himself, who reportedly spoke with Gase a few weeks ago about pairing down the playbook to plays that he likes, which pleased Gase. Clearly, the 22-year old is realizing this team is his.
On Sunday it was all Darnold, all the time. He guided the Jets to scores on each of their first three possessions of the game.
He opened the game with two big passes of 23-yards to Le'Veon Bell and 24-yards to Robby Anderson, respectively to move the Jets deep into Raiders territory. Were it not for a questionable offensive pass interference call on Demaryius Thomas, Darnold would have had an 18-yard touchdown pass on the Jets opening drive. New York settled for the field goal instead, tying the game at three.
On the Jets next possession, Darnold guided Gang Green on a 12-play, 96-yard scoring drive, with the biggest play of the drive coming on a horrible roughing the passer penalty on Oakland that changed the complexion of the drive. A play later, Darnold plowed into the end zone for the score to give the Jets a 10-3 advantage.
The Jets kept the peddle to the meddle in the second half, scoring three touchdowns in the third quarter to blow the game wide open. On the opening drive of the third quarter, Darnold found slot receiver Braxton Berrios on a beautiful slant that went 69-yards to the Raiders' one-yard line. Darnold connected with tight end Ryan Griffin for the score to put the Jets up 20-3.
After another Raiders three-and-out, Darnold rolled out of the pocket and appeared to have 20-yards in front of him to run, but instead threaded the needle to Robby Anderson for a 30-yard gain to the Raiders' nine-yard line. Two plays later, Darnold connected with Anderson again in the back-corner of the end zone for the score to make it 27-3.
On the other side of the ball, the Jets defense was ferocious. The Jets completely shutdown rookie sensation Josh Jacobs, holding him to 34-yards on 10 carries, while Raiders quarterback Derek Carr, struggled all afternoon. Carr completed only 15 passes on 27 attempts for 127 yards and an interception.The interception of course was a lolly pop that was picked off in the air by safety Brian Poole, who brought it back for a touchdown to give the Jets a 34-3 advantage.
At 4-7, the Jets are now riding a three-game winning streak, and are quickly turning around a once disappointing season. While playoffs are out of the question, the Jets are starting to find an identity. The Jets visit the winless Cincinnati Bengals (0-11) on Sunday, in a game the Jets shouldn't lose. They have already lost to a winless team already this year, and the worst thing the Jets can do to erase all this good feeling is lose to a horrible Bengals team.
If the Jets take care of business against Cincinnati, and against the Miami Dolphins in two weeks, they would be ... believe it or not ... only a game under .500.
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