Close your eyes and allow the imagination to run wild:
Look! It’s Aaron Rodgers walking to the pregame locker room without a limp and without the use of a cart.
Look! It’s Aaron Rodgers launching bombs on the field before Jets-Chargers.
And then one of these days, here comes Aaron Rodgers, trotting into the Jets’ huddle, a marvel to modern science, uplifting a franchise desperate to end its 12-year playoff drought.
For all of Jetkind, it is a dream worth dreaming.
Just Heal, Baby!
To a man, the Jets believe they are a playoff team.
They didn’t look like one and they didn’t play like one when they flopped 27-6 against the Chargers on Monday night.
And the jury remains out on whether they can be one with Zach Wilson.
The shame of it all is the Jets (4-4) blew an opportunity to close to within half a game of the first-place Dolphins.
Wilson isn’t throwing interceptions. That’s all well and good.
But he isn’t throwing touchdown passes either.
“Not good enough,” he said.
Either he was afraid to make a mistake or he has forgotten how to let it rip.
“I feel like I’m seeing the field better than I ever have,” Wilson said.
This was nevertheless one of those occasions when he reminded us that he is a backup quarterback in the NFL — fumbling three times, two of which were recovered by the Chargers.
Contain Breece Hall, and you essentially contain the Jets, even with Garrett Wilson, and that was the 31st-ranked overall defense and 32nd pass defense standing between Wilson and the end zone.
It was so tempting to offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett that he was overly pass-happy in the first half.
But the Jets’ offense is the Little Engine that Couldn’t.
Wilson (33-for-49, 263 yards) tried to take what they gave him and could not take what he needed to take when it mattered on third down (3-for-17) and in the red zone yet again.
“I want to get the ball out of my hands quicker, I want to get more completions, get the ball out of my hands for our playmakers and let ’em make plays,” he said. “We gotta figure something out.”
He makes a pretty throw or two with his much-ballyhooed arm talent but cannot sustain drives for a myriad of reasons.
He was hit by Khalil Mack and fumbled away what became a Chargers’ touchdown late in the fourth quarter.
His lone chance for a garbage time TD pass was dropped by C.J. Uzomah in the final minute.
The Jets started him out in a no-huddle offense, but it wasn’t long before it reverted to the old no-offense huddle.
The boobirds returned when he suffered his sixth of eight sacks — this one for 15 yards — trailing 20-6 just past midway through the fourth quarter.
Wilson, trailing 17-3, had come out firing when the second half began — 31 yards to Garrett Wilson, 16 to Tyler Conklin — and it all stalled at the 11 when he held the ball and paid for it with back-to-back sacks. Field goal.
Déjà vu all over again: Wilson marched to the Chargers’ 32, third-and 3: False start on Jeremy Ruckert before Wilson is sacked by Joey Bosa, knocking the Jets out of field-goal range.
Zach Wilson was down 14-0 midway through the second quarter thanks to a series of Stupid Jet Tricks when he took possession at his 45 following an 11-yard sack of Justin Herbert by John Franklin-Myers. On third-and-8 at the Chargers 32, Wilson had a wide opening begging him to run for a first down. Which he realized only after he had decided to flip the ball to Michael Carter instead. For 3 yards. And the Jets settled for a field goal.
Zach Wilson needs all the help he can get, and he wasn’t helped when Allen Lazard dropped a second-and-10 pass on the play preceding a sack.
And he certainly wasn’t helped by his offensive line and lack of discipline everywhere it seemed.
Or by an early Garrett Wilson fumble in Chargers territory.
“We gotta score on defense,” Sauce Gardner said.
Or so it seems.
“I hate coming off the field looking our defense in the eyes,” Garrett Wilson said.
Herbert didn’t have much success against the Jets’ defense. He didn’t need to.
Despite the loss, an AFC playoff berth is still there for the taking.
Of course no one wants to rush Rodgers and his Achilles.
But Just Heal, Baby. As fast as is humanly possible.
