Pass the cayenne pepper.
The Jets snapped their five-game losing skid with a 21-13 victory over the Texans on Thursday night at MetLife Stadium.
Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers said this week that he was drinking a concoction of water and cayenne pepper that he called a “fountain of youth.” Rodgers looked every bit of his 40 years in the first half but then looked like his younger self in the second half. He went 15 of 18 for 179 yards and three touchdowns in the second half.
The win moves the Jets to 3-6 and keeps alive the faint heartbeat of their season.
“Kind of season on the line there in the second half,” Rodgers said. “Mentally, to go 2-7 would have been real tough.”
The highlight of the game was a one-handed catch by Garrett Wilson in the back of the end zone that gave the Jets a 14-10 lead, a lead they would not relinquish.
Wilson was originally called out of bounds but a review showed his left shin was down in the end zone. It was a catch that was reminiscent of Odell Beckham Jr.’s one-handed grab for the Giants a decade ago.
“When I was in Little League, man, I used to have some catches,” Wilson said. “It felt like I was going back to those days a little bit.’’
It was the Texans and not the Jets this week with the fourth-quarter mistakes that cost them the game. Ka’imi Fairbairn missed a 27-yard field goal after making a field goal that was wiped out by a penalty earlier in the drive.
Fairbairn had two missed field goals in the game. The Jets are used to being the team with the kicking woes. The Texans fell to 6-3.
The Texans defense could not come up with a stop late in the game.
The Jets put the game away with an eight-play, 80-yard drive that ended with a 37-yard touchdown pass from Rodgers to Davante Adams that gave the Jets a 21-10 lead.
Adams earlier exited the game briefly to be checked for a concussion and returned to score his first touchdown as a Jet.
The Jets defense had Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud on his heels all night. They sacked Stroud eight times and Houston only mounted one touchdown drive.
The Texans tacked on a late field goal to make it 21-13.
The victory was Jeff Ulbrich’s first as Jets interim coach after he lost his first three games since taking over for Robert Saleh.
He got the game ball in the postgame locker room and players said he was emotional.
“I feel like one of my strengths is to block out the outside noise, but it gets loud,” Ulbrich said. “This team took a lot of shots externally. The way they just stayed together and worked and kept a positive attitude and just galvanized as a unit, I’m really proud of them.”
The Jets flipped the game around in the second half after trailing 7-0 at the break. The first half was an absolutely putrid performance by the Jets that had the Halloween crowd booing the Jets off the field. The Jets had 69 yards of total offense in the half, just 14 passing.
Rookie wide receiver Malachi Corley had a boneheaded play that cost the Jets a touchdown. There were killer drops from Breece Hall and Davante Adams. The defense could not tackle.
It was an ugly, ugly display of football in this forgettable Jets season.
As bad as the Jets were, the Texans were not much better. They had three punts, a fumble and a missed field goal in the first half.
Their only success came on a 14-play, 98-yard drive that ended with a Joe Mixon touchdown and a 7-0 lead for Houston.
It should have been a 7-7 tie if not for the massive mistake by Corley.
The rookie, who has barely played this season, appeared to score a 19-yard touchdown on a run, but replay showed that he flipped the ball behind himself before crossing the goal line.
The ball then rolled out of bounds in the end zone, giving the Texans the ball at the 20-yard line and taking the points off the board.
The Jets’ first half possessions were five punts and the Corley fumble.
The Jets received the ball to start the second half and finally showed life. Rodgers engineered an 11-play, 70-yard drive that ended with a 21-yard touchdown pass to Garrett Wilson. Rodgers seemed to find a rhythm on the drive and completed four passes.
New kicker Riley Patterson made the extra point … barely, with it clanging in off the upright to tie the game at 7-7.
The 70 yards on the drive were more than the Jets had in the entire first half (69).
The tie game did not last long.
On the next possession, the Texans moved the ball to the Jets’ 24 before losing 12 yards and settling for a 54-yard field goal by Fairbairn with 4:11 left in the third quarter that gave Houston a 10-7 lead.
The Jets took the lead on Wilson’s amazing catch. On a third-and-19 from the 26-yard line, Rodgers floated one up into the back of the end zone and Wilson grabbed it for the 14-10 lead.
On the next drive, the Texans came out and hit a 50-yard pass play on their first play, a shot from Stroud to Tank Dell to the Jets’ 24. But the Jets defense came up with another stop and this time Fairbairn missed a 27-yard field goal attempt, hitting the left upright.
The Jets get a break before heading to Arizona to play the Cardinals next week as they try to climb out of the hole they have dug for themselves.
