With ‘season on the line,’ Aaron Rodgers, Jets overcome ‘terrible’ first half in win over Texans

It looked like the Jets were headed for a sixth consecutive loss on Thursday night. Mistakes began piling up. Malachi Corley‘s boneheaded ball drop before crossing the goal line wiped out a TD. A bad roughing the kicker penalty gave the Texans new life. Missed tackles plagued the defense. And once again, New York had a trove of bad penalties.

“I mean, I was terrible,” Rodgers said of his first half. “We had a touchdown called … you know, taken off the board, silly play. But I feel like the energy was good at halftime. We had a chance to cash it in there. Morgan (Moses) gave a little speech, which was good. We all kind of were positive talking. Nobody was isolating at halftime. And we just knew, hey, let’s go out and score every possession.”

Rodgers generated his first three-TD game of the season as the offense finally woke up, thanks in large part to a ridiculous grab by Garrett Wilson.

The victory was the first for interim coach Jeff Ulbrich, pushing the Jets to 3-6. With just one of their final eight games against a team currently sitting above .500, the victory kept the Jets’ season alive in a muddled AFC. Now, a team that’s disappointed for most of 2024 has a chance to re-write its season.

“After three weeks of a lot of adversity and a lot of setbacks, some self-imposed, for them to have the resiliency to come back and play the way they did against a really good opponent, I was proud of them,” Ulbrich said.