http://www.newyorkjets.com/blog/posts/815-shoes-why-no-4-for-third-and-15-at-the-15 11/15 The Jets didnt get Brett Favre to light up a highlight reel. The Jets didnt get Brett Favre so theyd be on the big TV game more often. The Jets didnt get Brett Favre so ESPN would have reporters on their beat and extra cameras in their locker room. The Jets didnt get Brett Favre to score points like a pinball machine, although it doesnt hurt when it happens.
The Jets got Brett Favre for third-and-15 at their own 15 on the road in New England in overtime in a must-have spot thats probably about a 10 percent success rate play for most QBs in the NFL, and that might be generous.
They got Brett Favre because they know that not only do they need a QB with the talent to make that play happen but they need a player that marries that talent with a total calm to go along with it in the most intense pressurized moment.
Favre not only has the ability to make that play, but hes not worried about needing it when 70,000 Patriots fans are screaming at the tops of their lungs after Randy Moss makes an amazing catch to send an unlosable game into an overtime that Eric Mangini couldnt actually believe the Jets were in.
But theyve got No. 4, and not only is he much more comfortable with this offense now than he had ever been before, he also seems more than happy to spread the ball around to as versatile and deep a group of playmakers as the Jets have ever had.
Favre can hand it off to the top rusher in the AFC in Thomas Jones. He can throw across his body into traffic to convert another big third down to Laveranues Coles. He can do the same for a TD to Jerricho Cotchery. He can get the ball into the hands of Leon Washington in any number of ways and know theres at least a chance that once Washington has the ball no matter where he is on the field, it could be six.
And he can drop back on third-and-15 from his own 15 on a play he has to have in the most intense moment a team could face in a regular-season game with arguably their season hanging in the balance, and he can throw it to a rookie tight end named Dustin Keller that is emerging as a target that has the right to be called Favres favorite as much as any other player in this offense.
In order to have a magical season, a team has clear-cut defining moments when it must execute, and some of those moments come on the road. The Jets had that moment in the fourth quarter at Buffalo and put together an eight-minute drive when they had to have it to ice a huge win. They had that moment in the fourth quarter at Foxboro when they needed to put together a drive to break ... a 24-24 tie in a game that actually felt like they were losing after blowing a 24-6 lead.
And then the drive that trumps them all ... in an overtime that must have seemed like a bad dream in the first place, third-and-15 at their own 15, game over if they dont convert, most likely division race over if they lose.
And an 18-year veteran Hall of Fame quarterback finds a rookie tight end that was about 6 years old when he first threw a pass in the NFL and hits that rookie for a first down. Drive alive. Season now more than alive.
Maybe this will be a magical year.