The 2022 season was starting to feel like it was slipping away from the Jets, as they looked set to drop to 1-3 with a disappointing loss in a winnable game against the rebuilding Pittsburgh Steelers.
The offense wasted a solid first-half performance by the defense in Zach Wilson’s return to action and rookie Kenny Pickett came off the bench to lead the Steelers to a 20-10 fourth-quarter lead.
However, having struggled all day on offense, the Jets finally put together two touchdown drives to win the game on Breece Hall’s touchdown run with 16 seconds remaining. Wilson completed nine of his last 10 passes, after earlier having thrown two interceptions, to lead the Jets to their second stunning come from behind win of the season.
Although Wilson was making his eagerly awaited return to action, the touchdown pass that gave them a first-half lead for the first time all year came from an unlikely source. As the Jets drove down to the two-yard line, it was Braxton Berrios who threw the touchdown pass on a gadget play, with Wilson on the receiving end. However, the offense completely stalled after that.
It was another quarterback change that looked to set the bigger story, as the first-round rookie Pickett replaced Mitch Trubisky at halftime to make his NFL debut. He capitalized on Wilson’s second interception of the game to give the Steelers the lead on a quarterback sneak midway through the third quarter, then added another touchdown run in the fourth quarter. However, his three interceptions helped the Jets to overcome this and improve to 2-2 on the season.
Here are the takeaways...
- Wilson’s return saw the Jets playing conservatively initially, with some of that presumably by design in an effort to slow down the Steelers’ pass rush. However, they opened things up on their third drive as he zipped two completions to Elijah Moore, then finished the drive with some creativity on the gadget play. He was very inconsistent until those last two drives, though.
- The Jets’ safeties have justifiably come in for some criticism after the first three games, but Lamarcus Joyner got the Jets off to a good start with a downfield pass breakup and a low interception. In the second half, he deflected another downfield pass that was intercepted by Jordan Whitehead and then intercepted a Hail Mary pass to ice the win.
- With all the injury issues at tackle, the Jets surprised everyone as they resorted to moving Alijah Vera-Tucker out to left tackle for this game, with Nate Herbig filling in at right guard. Right tackle Max Mitchell was carted off just before halftime to further complicate matters. The Steelers had plenty of men in the backfield from the early stages, as you’d expect.
- The Jets also generated more pressure this week, at least in the first half, although it came about mostly as a result of Trubisky being less decisive than the quarterbacks they’ve faced so far. Credit here must again go to the back seven for being in position in coverage.
- For once, the Jets were able to benefit from some mistakes by their opponents with eight of the first nine penalties that were called going against the Steelers. However, they gifted the Steelers three points at the end of the first half when Carl Lawson was called for roughing the passer to negate an interception on a Hail Mary pass and had several costly penalties in the second half.
- Surprisingly, the Steelers’ top two wide receivers did virtually no damage as Chase Claypool went without a catch and Diontae Johnson just caught two short passes in the fourth quarter. Ahmad Gardner and DJ Reed have mostly done a good job of limiting yardage from other teams’ top targets. However, rookie George Pickens stepped up and made some big plays.
- After falling behind 20-10 in the fourth quarter, the Jets finally put together a solid drive to cut the deficit to 20-17 with 7:31 to go, although even this was an ordeal as there were penalties, misfires and negative plays before Wilson finally found Corey Davis with a third-down touchdown pass in the red zone. When the Jets got the ball back on an interception by Michael Carter II, it gave them the chance to drive downfield again for Hall’s winning score.
- The Jets never gave up on trying to establish their running game, but they had an inordinate amount of runs stuffed at or behind the line. Michael Carter was held to just 15 yards on eight carries, although Hall did break a few nice runs. They stuck with this on the last drive, though, and it paid dividends with some key yards and the decisive touchdown.