And Now for Something Completely Different - The Jets Win

Last year the Jets returned from their bye week with a brand new defense. They cut their points allowed in half and became one of the stingiest teams in the league. That propelled them from the middle of the AFC pack to the playoffs. This year there's no chance of a playoff berth but, after today's 19-16 win over the Steelers, there's reason to believe that Eric Mangini and company may have pulled off a similar defensive resurrection.

The Jets had nine sacks through their first nine games. They dropped Ben Roethlisberger seven times today. They've been giving up more than 150 yards per game on the ground but held the Steelers to 112 through four-plus quarters. They forced two turnovers and limited the Steelers to three second half field goals when a touchdown would have made their chances at victory quite slim indeed.

The Jets were much more aggressive than they've been up to this point and the Steeler line looked like it was stuck in (nonexistent) mud. Dewayne Robertson, who's been more of a rumor than an actual player this year, had two and a half sacks by shooting past Sean Mahan, Alan Faneca and Kendall Simmons like he was John Randle circa '97. Shaun Ellis, another much malinged defensive lineman, ran through Willie Colon like bad clams. They wore green and white but in no way resembled the 2007 Jets.

While the defense was the story, the Jets offensive effort bears mentioning as well. On the first play of the day Thomas Jones sprinted for 11 yards and the Jets ran a flea flicker to perfection on the next snap to get the ball to the one-yard line. Kellen Clemens found Chris Baker for a score that established a lot of momentum for both sides of the ball. Jones finished with 117 yards on 30 carries and each number is an eyebrow raiser. 117 yards is 40 more than the Steelers have been allowing to date and the 30 carries were a season-high as the Jets committed to the run with gusto for the first time all year.

Clemens was erratic, 14-of-31 with a pick, but he led a sharp little drive to set up Mike Nugent's game-tying field goal. He completed five passes of 10 or more yards to move the Jets downfield and scrambled for 15 yards to move the Jets to the Steeler 30. There were more downfield looks which had the desired effects of spreading out the Steeler D and keeping them off balance.

The one familiar sight for the Jets was Leon Washington breaking a big return. After forcing the Steelers to go three-and-out in overtime Washington took a poor Daniel Sepulveda punt 33 yards to the Steeler 26. Three Jones carries and a Nugent kick made the final academic.

For the Steelers this was a third road loss against, on paper, inferior competition this season. It really looked like they were in cruise control for long portions of this game. After being down 13-7 at the half they controlled the third quarter but either wore down or coasted toward the end of the game. With the Colts looking awfully vulnerable over the last three weeks, the Steelers had a chance to move up the AFC ranks. Today's game makes it harder to believe in them for the long haul.