Favre in huddle a confidence booster for Jets- ERIK BOLAND | erik.boland@newsday.com
November 15, 2008
Brett Favre said he was nervous. "Nervous as heck," he added.
The Jets, after winning the overtime coin toss Thursday night, faced a rabid Gillette Stadium crowd and a Patriots defense riding the momentum their offensive teammates had provided at the end of regulation.
But Favre led a Jets regular-season version of "The Drive," a 14-play beauty that never gave the Patriots' offense a chance. It ended with Jay Feely's 34-yard field goal that gave the Jets a 34-31 victory and sole possession of first place in the AFC East.
Favre finally had put his signature on a Jets win, doing so by exuding a confidence that he might not have felt but spread to his team nonetheless.
"It is very special to have a guy like that step into your huddle," said receiver Jerricho Cotchery, who had five catches for 87 yards, including a 46-yarder in the second quarter that should be a catch-of-the-season candidate. "I didn't see any nervousness on his face; I saw a quiet confidence on his face, so to speak. When he stepped into the huddle, we knew we were going to be able to get it done because that's the way he's been this entire year."
Thursday was Favre's 42nd career win after being tied or behind in the fourth quarter. No. 41 came Oct. 26 when he hit Laveranues Coles with a TD pass with one minute left in a 28-24 victory over Kansas City. But that was at home, against the struggling Chiefs. Not on the road against a team that had come back from 24-6 and 31-24 deficits, forcing overtime with an improbable 16-yard TD pass to Randy Moss with one second left in the fourth quarter.
But once defensive captain Kerry Rhodes made his prescient "tails" call on the overtime coin flip, a sense of belief took over the Jets' sideline.
"When you have Brett Favre coming into the huddle, it makes everybody else in the huddle step their games up," said Leon Washington, who electrified that same sideline with his 92-yard kickoff return for a TD in the second quarter. "We're fortunate to have a guy like that leading us."
Favre, given how unstoppable the Patriots' offense had been in the second half, believed the Jets needed to score on their first possession of overtime.
"I felt like it's either now or nothing; this is your one shot," Favre said. "They were on offense, our defense was tired - it was all or nothing."
Favre threw incomplete to Washington on his first pass attempt of the drive but went 5-for-5 thereafter, by far the biggest being his 16-yard strike to rookie tight end Dustin Keller on third-and-15 from the Jets' 15-yard line.
"I think Brett just . . . he instills confidence in the group," Eric Mangini said. "There's a sense of ease when he has the ball. You feel he's going to get it to the right place."
And right now for the Jets, that place is first.