The Jets had a fourth-and-two or so from the Tampa Bay seven-yard line with 2:17 to go, needing just a first down to cement a huge victory over the playoff-bound Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Head coach Robert Saleh had elected to go for it rather than kick a field goal to go up seven, noting that either way, Tom Brady needed a touchdown to keep the Bucs alive, and going for it and not getting it would most likely leave Brady a longer field.
Unfortunately, we know what happened: the Jets failed to convert and Brady went 93 yards in less than two minutes, hitting Cyril Grayson for the game-winning 33-yard touchdown pass with 15 seconds left to cement his 53rd regular-season game-winning drive and 67th overall.
“That last play, we have to be better from a coverage standpoint. They shouldn’t be getting explosives in a 2-shell and he managed to catch a fade ball,” Saleh said of the final play. “That’s no good. I felt with no timeouts we’d do a good job keeping the ball in front of us. One more tackle in bounds and we’d be looking at a last play effort.”
Brady, working with no time outs, hit Tyler Johnson for 27 yards and then Grayson for 10, both plays ending in bounds. And then, this:
As Saleh alluded to, Grayson not scoring and not getting out of bounds would’ve forced a scramble to get to the line and spike the ball for a final play. Elijah Riley nearly got to the ball to make a play, but didn’t, and it goes down as Brady’s umpteenth fourth-quarter comeback.
“What it comes down to is I need to make that play, that’s it,” Riley said. “In the final seconds against a team like this, I have to be able to make that play. It was close.”
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“Just credit to Tom Brady and his squad and what he was able to be,” Bryce Hall added. “He’s a veteran who owns the moment. We don’t want to give up explosives. We have to be better in that situation.”
The Jets didn’t convert on the offensive end to end the game earlier, but to a man, the defense was excited to get the chance to stop one last Tom Brady gasp.
“In a situation like that against a quarterback who has done it many times, we were excited for the opportunity to go out there and win the game,” Riley said. “At the end of the day we didn’t do that. We could’ve stopped a couple things on that drive, and ultimately, I have to make that last play.”
“We believed we were going to stop them,” Hall added.
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Unfortunately, they didn’t, but a learning experience for the Jets to grow on.
“I think the fight we showed; at the end of the day, we fought hard for 60 minutes and gave them the best we had,” cornerback Michael Carter II said. “We just didn’t finish.”
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