The sport had been over for some 45 minutes and the Jets postgame locker room was buzzing for a change.
The Jets’ 21-13 win over the Texans Thursday night time at MetLife Stadium ended a five-game dropping streak. It had been a protracted month for the Jets, who’d fallen to 2-6 and had been on the point of rubbish time to this season.
For Jeff Ulbrich, who was named Jets interim coach when head coach Robert Saleh was fired after a 2-3 begin, the previous month needed to have felt like a yr or three.
The Jets misplaced their first three video games beneath the watch of Ulbrich, a soccer lifer as a former participant who was put in a really troublesome place with the hasty, poorly timed teaching change by workforce proprietor Woody Johnson.
Saleh mustn’t have been fired within the first place final month, however that’s a moot level now.
Ulbrich, whom Saleh delivered to the Jets and to whom he stays extraordinarily shut, noticed his protection enjoying madly inconsistently in his first three video games as the pinnacle coach.
And it didn’t assist that the offense, regardless of being led by quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who was introduced right here to guide this woebegone workforce to the Promised Land, was dangerous, too.
Absolutely, Ulbrich, after dropping these first three video games, will need to have puzzled if he had been ever going to win a single NFL recreation as a head coach.
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That point got here on Thursday. Lastly.
And it was emotional. For Ulbrich, who by his nature takes credit score for nothing and deflects it to his gamers. And for his gamers, who after the sport had been fast to direct credit score to Ulbrich.
“He by no means modified, bro, from when he was the coordinator to now, he’s at all times been the identical man,” defensive lineman Javon Kinlaw instructed The Put up.
“He deserves this, man,” proper deal with Morgan Moses instructed The Put up. “The power he’s introduced has been superb. So, to see him get his first win was essential to us as gamers. There’s been no one extra constructive than that dude.”
Tight finish Tyler Conklin stated, “I’ll run by means of a wall” for Ulbrich.
“The best way he approaches daily, he makes you are feeling such as you’re household, and the largest factor to a great workforce is feeling such as you belong,” Conklin stated. “He makes us all really feel that means.”
Heart Joe Tippmann recalled spending instances within the sizzling tub with Ulbrich on the workforce facility when Ulbrich was the defensive coordinator “and he can be giving me suggestions on issues I can do to enhance my recreation.”
“That’s a former linebacker who’s not even my place coach giving me recommendation on how I might be higher,” Tippmann stated. “He’s simply an superior dude. The final month has been tough, however everybody’s been behind [Ulbrich] the entire time.”
Instantly after Rodgers threw a landing cross to Davante Adams to offer the Jets a 21-10 lead late within the recreation Thursday, he went proper to Ulbrich and stated, “That was for you, buddy.”
“As a result of we love him, care about him, we respect the power he brings to it, his method, simply the type of man he’s,” Rodgers stated. “Jeff’s been actual regular. Good to get that first one.”
Now, after all, the Jets wants extra, starting with Sunday towards the Cardinals in Arizona. As a result of they’ve left zero margin for error for themselves at 3-6.
It’ll be on Ulbrich now to seek out methods to keep away from the essential blunders that had been holding the Jets again. We chastised the Yankees, who made it to the World Sequence, for his or her basic breakdowns — gaffes that value them an opportunity at successful their twenty eighth title.
The Jets haven’t any probability to stay in rivalry to merely make their first playoff berth for the primary time in 14 years until Ulbrich can determine a option to eradicate the sorts of errors his workforce made in Thursday’s victory and within the earlier three losses.
After his first victory, Ulbrich was typical in his deflection of reward, calling it “particular from the standpoint of this workforce.”
“I really feel like certainly one of my strengths is to dam out the surface noise,” Ulbrich stated. “It will get loud and this workforce took numerous pictures externally. The best way they only stayed collectively and labored and saved a constructive angle and galvanized as a unit, actually happy with them.”
In fact, the pleasure and good emotions from the opposite night time final solely till the subsequent kickoff.
The place can the thrill and power from Thursday night time’s win take the Jets shifting ahead?
“It will possibly take us wherever we need to go,” Kinlaw stated. “Wherever our future is. I really feel like we will go there. We’ve simply received to maintain the power excessive. Maintain [bleeping] leaning on one another.”
