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 evening 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 have been getting ready to 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 12 months or three.
The Jets misplaced their first three video games below 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 taking part in madly inconsistently in his first three video games as the top 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.
Certainly, Ulbrich, after dropping these first three video games, will need to have questioned if he have been ever going to win a single NFL sport as a head coach.
Extra From Mark Cannizzaro
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 have been fast to direct credit score to Ulbrich.
“He by no means modified, bro, from when he was the coordinator to now, he’s all the time been the identical man,” defensive lineman Javon Kinlaw instructed The Submit.
“He deserves this, man,” proper deal with Morgan Moses instructed The Submit. “The vitality he’s introduced has been wonderful. So, to see him get his first win was essential to us as gamers. There’s been no one extra optimistic than that dude.”
Tight finish Tyler Conklin mentioned, “I’ll run by a wall” for Ulbrich.
“The way in which he approaches on daily basis, he makes you’re feeling such as you’re household, and the most important factor to a great workforce is feeling such as you belong,” Conklin mentioned. “He makes us all really feel that approach.”
Heart Joe Tippmann recalled spending occasions within the scorching 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 sport.”
“That’s a former linebacker who’s not even my place coach giving me recommendation on how I might be higher,” Tippmann mentioned. “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 go to Davante Adams to present the Jets a 21-10 lead late within the sport Thursday, he went proper to Ulbrich and mentioned, “That was for you, buddy.”
“As a result of we love him, care about him, we recognize the vitality he brings to it, his method, simply the form of man he’s,” Rodgers mentioned. “Jeff’s been actual regular. Good to get that first one.”
Now, in fact, the Jets wants extra, starting with Sunday in opposition to 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 search 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 profitable their twenty eighth title.
The Jets haven’t any likelihood to stay in competition to merely make their first playoff berth for the primary time in 14 years except Ulbrich can determine a strategy to get rid of 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 one in every of my strengths is to dam out the skin noise,” Ulbrich mentioned. “It will get loud and this workforce took loads of pictures externally. The way in which they only stayed collectively and labored and saved a optimistic angle and galvanized as a unit, actually pleased with them.”
In fact, the pleasure and good emotions from the opposite evening final solely till the subsequent kickoff.
The place can the excitement and vitality from Thursday evening’s win take the Jets transferring ahead?
“It might probably take us wherever we wish to go,” Kinlaw mentioned. “Wherever our future is. I really feel like we will go there. We’ve simply obtained to maintain the vitality excessive. Maintain [bleeping] leaning on one another.”
