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At halftime, things weren’t looking great for New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers against the Houston Texans in Week 9.
“Yeah I mean, I was terrible,” Rodgers told the media after the game when asked about the first half. “I played about as bad as I could in the first half and I knew it had to get better from there.”
Rodgers was 7-of-14 for 32 passing yards halfway through the game. According to The 33rd Team, the 32 passing yards “tied for a career low in any half where [Rodgers] had at least 10 attempts.”
However, something clicked at halftime because Jets fans got a taste of vintage Rodgers in the second half.
Rodgers was 15-of-18 for 179 passing yards and three touchdowns. He didn’t have a turnover in the game.
That boosted the Jets to a 21-13 victory over the Texans, snapping a five-game losing streak on the season.
The Jets Have Renewed Hope for the Rest of 2024
This version of Rodgers can do special things with the Jets.
He galvanized the team, maximized the weapons on offense, and the defense delivered when it mattered most seemingly feeding off of the energy from the offense.
The green and white faithful have been waiting for this all season. As the losses started to pile up, many of them questioned if it would ever come to fruition. Now those questions have been answered but new ones have surfaced.
How will the Jets handle success?
That is the same question Rodgers posed following the team’s emphatic Week 3 victory over the New England Patriots. The answer was not well.
The Jets lost their next five games and became the laughingstock of the league. Up until Week 9 of course when the Jets erupted on the scene.
Interestingly the green and white are 2-0 in Thursday Night Football games and are 1-6 on all of the other days of the week.
The bad news is the Jets don’t have another Thursday game for the rest of the season. The good news is if they play like this, it won’t matter what day of the week they are playing on.
It Wasn’t Perfect and There Is Plenty of Room for Improvement
The Jets didn’t score a single point in the first half. Braelon Allen continues to be MIA from the offense and when he shows up he hasn’t performed. Gang Green was penalized nine times for 83 yards.
The Jets won a football game and that hasn’t happened a lot this season. The team should savor it and enjoy it, but they have to quickly turn the page to Week 10 against the Arizona Cardinals.
The first half of the season put the Jets in a pretty deep hole. They entered this game with a paltry 2-6 record which was good enough for last place in the AFC East and the No. 15 seed in a 16-seeded AFC conference.
Not great Bob.
However, things are on the up and up. The Jets are now in second place in the AFC East and hold the No. 10 seed in the AFC conference.
To legitimately reenter the playoff conversation, the Jets will have to either 8-0 or 7-1 the rest of the way. 10 wins will get you into the AFC playoffs, 9 wins is more uncertain. With all of the team’s blown tiebreakers earlier this season, that path might prove more unlikely.
The margin for error is nonexistent. Rodgers has gone on these kinds of runs before. The key ingredient is belief. After the Week 9 showing versus the Texans, it seems like this team is finally believing that they can do this thing.
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