Calvin Pace, an outside linebacker for the New York Jets, has made a living as a football player going on 13 years. He sensed a while ago that the Jets’ success or failure this year would be determined in the 17th and final week of the regular season. And he was right.
Following a strange 26-20 overtime victory Sunday over the battered New England Patriots, the Jets (10-5) can make the AFC playoffs as a wild-card team by merely winning their season finale this Sunday afternoon. It sounds simple, but nothing connected with the Jets ever is.
The Jets must travel to Buffalo and beat the Bills, who are 7-8 and defeated the Jets at MetLife Stadium on November 17, 22-17. And the Bills are coached by none other than Rex Ryan, who was the Jets’ bellicose head coach between 2009 and last season.
“It’s just fate,” Pace said, smiling. “I knew this was how it was going to happen. It’s going to be a tough one. They’re not really playing for a playoff spot, but I know Rex is going to have those guys ready to go and fired up.”
The Jets were terrific in Ryan’s first two seasons, making it to the AFC championship game in each season, but they missed the playoffs in his last four seasons, and Ryan was gone after finishing 4-12 last season. He was unemployed for exactly two weeks before the Bills scooped him up.
His first season in Buffalo has been far less successful than his first season with the Jets. The Bills won’t make the playoffs for the 16th straight season, and Ryan has come under fire.
But Ryan does have a chance to foil his old team, the NFL team he said he always wanted to coach, and the Jets are aware of that. They can also get in if the Steelers (9-6) lose Sunday to Cleveland, but the Jets seemed to think it would be more fun to get in by beating Rex.
“He’s in the way right now, and we’ve got to get past them,” Jets defensive lineman Sheldon Richardson said.
“It’s the Buffalo Bills. It’s tough to win in Buffalo, anyway, and it’s a division game in December,” Jets linebacker Demario Davis told the Guardian. “It’s going to be intense. There’s a lot on the line.”
So there is one delicious storyline. But there are others, notably this one: first-year Jets quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick, who became a starter in August when IK Enemkpali broke Geno Smith’s jaw with a sucker punch, played for four years in Buffalo.
Chan Gailey, the Jets’ offensive coordinator, coached the Bills in Fitzpatrick’s last three years in Buffalo. The Jets’ quarterback coach, Kevin Patullo, was an assistant under Gailey in Buffalo. Ryan claimed Enemkpali a day after the Jets cut him and made him one of the captains in the November 17 game.
Plus this: Fitzpatrick and his favorite receiver, Brandon Marshall, the much-traveled (and maligned) 10-year vet in his first year with the Jets, have no playoff experience.
“You guys will have plenty to write about, which will be good,” Fitzpatrick said, nodding at reporters, “but, yes, it’s a crazy circumstance that that’s what it’s going to come down to in Buffalo.”
Fitzpatrick tore a ligament in his left (non-throwing) thumb on a scramble in a November 1 loss to Oakland, returned for two games, underwent surgery a day after the loss to the Bills and was back for the next game. He has a quarterback rating of 100-plus in four of his last five games.
He threw for two touchdowns as the Jets claimed a 17-3 third-quarter lead Sunday against the Patriots, but New England scored a touchdown when Fitzpatrick fumbled as he tried to pass. In the Jets’ last four possessions of regulation, they had one field goal and three punts.
Then New England coach Bill Belichick tried something unconventional, calling for his team to elect to kick off if the Patriots won the overtime coin toss. After the game, Belichick grumbled something about wanting to play for field position, but this much was clear: Belichick thought the Patriots could force another Jets’ punt and win the game with a field goal.
Pace, for one, said of Belichick: “I just think he looked at it as he’s got a guy who won games in Tom Brady over and over who has led drives like that. I can see why he did that.”
On the Jets’ second play in overtime, Fitzpatrick slung a short pass – and slung really is the best word to describe how he throws a football – to Quincy Enunwa, who turned it into a 48-yard gain. Two plays later, Fitzpatrick completed a pass to Marshall for 20 yards. On the next play, he floated a six-yard touchdown pass to Eric Decker that ended the game.
“We were kind of left for dead at one point,” Pace said of the Jets, who were 7-5 after a 24-17 loss November 22 to Houston. “We were in those games in the middle of the season. I think those guys took a look in the mirror and said it was either we were going to get better or we were going to be home in January. I just think collectively, players, coaching staff, everybody reeled it in and got tighter as a group and just went for it. It’s been a wonderful thing to be a part of – to actually be playing meaningful football in December. We’ve just go to handle our business one more time.”
When the Jets gathered in their locker room after a jubilant mid-field celebration, some of them, Bowles included, were told of another final score: Baltimore 20, Pittsburgh 17. With the Steelers falling to 9-6, the Jets controlled the sixth, and last, AFC wild-card playoff berth.
“That’s what football is all about: We control our own destiny now,” Decker said. “If you take care of business, you allow yourself to keep playing in January.”
Well, the Jets would have concluded the season in January, anyway, but they play deeper into the month with a victory over Rex Ryan and his new team. Bowles, who is practically on the other end of the scale on the coaches’ decibel meter from Ryan, said this:
“We haven’t arrived yet. We still haven’t gotten into the playoffs yet. There are things we have to do next week. We have things to clean up, but they fight. They’re gritty. They have character, and they have learned to play together. That’s the biggest thing we’re doing right now.”
About 350 miles to the northwest of the Meadowlands, the Bills wrapped up a 16-6 victory over the rag-tag Dallas Cowboys in Buffalo. Nine minutes after the Bills won, Decker caught the touchdown pass from Fitzpatrick to seal the Jets’ overtime victory.
Ryan was asked by reporters if he watched the end of the Jets game. He said no. Then he was asked if he had any feelings about playing the Jets in a meaningful game – for the Jets only. Ryan said: “I don’t really feel anything about it. I just know we’re gonna give them our best shot. We’ll see who’s healthy, who’s not or whatever. But they know they’re gonna get our best shot, without question.”
