When your defense stands up to Drew Brees and suffocates him with JetLife Stadium on its feet and the game on the line at the end, when you know you have just played the way contenders are supposed to play, when you can feel the belief mushrooming and exploding around you, on the field and in the locker room, when you have gifted Rex Ryan another victory over his twin Rob — oh brother — it is so difficult for you not to dream.
An impossible dream at the start of the season. The biggest possible dream now.
“I think this team can go pretty far,” Josh Cribbs said. “I don’t want to count our eggs before they hatch, but week by week, we’re creating a monster. And everybody’s going to see it. We’re beating teams that we shouldn’t, that people think that we can’t, and what we got to do is, we got to win the games we’re supposed to, and we go to shock people on the games that they think we can’t win. All the ingredients are here.”
To do what?
“To go all the way,” Cribbs said.
“Our goal is to win the Super Bowl. That’s every one of ours goal, from the lowest person to the highest person on this team, is to win a Super Bowl. But we got to take it game by game. Week by week.”
Rex Ryan will remember this as much more than another day when he beat Rob, the defensive coordinator of the Saints, for the fifth time in five NFL tries, with their dad Buddy Ryan in the house, if it proves to be the launching pad for a season no one saw coming.
The naysayers who have been laughing at the Jets since 2011 assuredly will laugh at any Super Bowl talk coming from them now. The Jets will continue to use it as fuel.
“We think we’re an elite team. That’s how we’re thinking, man,” Sheldon Richardson said.
A jubilant, defiant Rex Ryan began his press conference this way: “Oh I beat my brother again, um …”
He already had reminded his Jets of that sibling matter, after congratulating his team for its pride and fight and toughness and heart.
“And guess what — I got to whip my brother’s ass again,” Rex added.
His players wanted this one for themselves, for their fans, and for him.
“It’s a great thing that we were able to win for our head coach,” Cribbs said.
- Oh, brother, did Chris Ivory (18 carries, 139 yards) run it down the throat of the team that discarded him. “A punch-in-the-mouth type back,” Rex said.
On a punch-you-in-the-face type team.
“They were arguing on their side of the ball. They were trying to figure out why we were kicking their butt,” Willie Colon said. “We just knew if we kept plugging away at it, they were going to crack.”
- Oh, brother, did flawless Nick Folk (four more field goals) resemble Lou (The Toe) Groza again.
- Oh, brother, did Dee Milliner finally play like a No. 1 draft choice.
- Oh, brother, did Geno Smith take care of the ball on a day when he was asked only to take care of the ball.
- Oh, brother, did Marty Mornhinweg torment Rob Ryan.
- Oh, brother, did it help when Darren Sproles (concussion) was forced out early.
- Oh, brother, did Gang Green (10 points that came off of Demario Davis and Antonio Cromartie interceptions) hound Brees.
“We knew he’s a short quarterback, and we knew also he’s an elite quarterback. Get him off his mark, that would get him rattled,” Muhammad Wilkerson said.
- Oh, brother, did Quinton Coples make a clutch play for an 8-yard loss on a reverse to Jason Hill fourth-and-1 at the NYJ 36 midway through the fourth quarter.
“At the end of the day, I can’t let anybody get outside of me, whether it’s the running back, or the reverse that it was,” Coples said
- Oh, brother, did Gang Green want to close this one out.
“This is why we get paid,” Wilkerson said in the huddle. “This is why we love this game.”
I asked Rex how nerve-wracking it was for him when Brees took over at his own 19 with 1:58 remaining.
“Not even worried at all.” He rolled his eyes and everyone laughed. “You know, like, ‘Drew Brees, like great. Can we put the backup in?’
“I will say this: was I confident in our guys? Absolutely. Absolutely I was confident in our guys to get it done. But a little nervous? Yes.”
Maybe the teams that play these roller-coaster Jets should be a little nervous.