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Confidence can be a powerful elixir in sports.
When the Jets flew to London on Thursday for Sunday’s game against the Falcons, they did so with a different side than the one that has played the first three games this season.
The same players were on that charter flight, but they were a very different team after the galvanizing first win of the season last Sunday, a 27-24 overtime triumph over the Titans at MetLife Stadium.
The venue for this week’s game is Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, where the Jets will look to move up to 2-3 for head coach Robert Saleh in a game that kicks off at 9:30 a.m. EST.
What that win over the Titans – Saleh’s first victory as a head coach and first quarterback rookie Zach Wilson as a pro – did for this team will be fascinating to see.
“Once you learn not to lose, then you learn to close games,” Saleh said Friday. “It’s a young group and they took a big step forward last week. We haven’t scratched the surface of where we’re going to go yet. ”
The focus was on the kid’s quarterback, and rightly so. Wilson has a dynamic “it” factor. He looked a bit shaky for most of the first three games, but appeared to erupt last Sunday.
“You hope this translates [to the next game]Saleh said of last week’s success. “When you’ve got a young band and… you’re successful, you never know what they can snowball into. “
The Jets scored 20 combined points in their first three games, then broke through with 27 against the Titans, with the offense appearing released for the first time this season.
And after?
The Falcons (1-3), who sit last in the league in defensive scoring, have allowed 128 points in four games. The opposing quarterbacks completed 70.5% of their passes against Atlanta for 1,096 yards with 11 touchdowns and no interceptions.
“I really feel like we’re very close to being a really good offense… and a good team overall,” Wilson said on Friday. “We want to start quickly and leave [the Falcons] know what kind of team we are. ”
When asked if there could be a postponement from last week to Sunday, Wilson replied, “That’s the goal,” calling the first win a “big deal” for player confidence.
As much as the focus has been on Wilson, the Jets’ defense has been the backbone to date.
The defense started the season with the most inexperienced secondary in the league, then lost both of their starting safeties to injury. There were a lot of moving parts, but Saleh and defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich kept the squad more than competitive with a bunch of rookies and unconfirmed young players.
Ulbrich, a former Falcons assistant coach, said he was “familiar” with the Atlanta staff and said, “There is a database I can lean on a bit.
“It’s exciting to play against them,” he said. “I know them well and it will be fun to follow them a bit. “
When asked this week if the defense got off to a better start than it might have expected, Ulbrich replied, “To tell you the truth, probably a little bit, especially from a back-end point of view. .
“I believed in these guys a lot and was excited about what they could become, but at the same time there was no proof, there was no proof, they hadn’t gone there- down and had not done so. So there is always an element of the unknown, and there is a bit of angst about it. But I think they did an exceptional job, and the beauty of these guys is that they get better every week. ”
These young guys will face an old man in Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan, 36, who threw 7,602 passes in the NFL for 56,757 yards and 355 touchdowns in his career.
The Jets took a big break because Ryan will be deprived of two of his best targets for this game. Receiver Calvin Ridley (27 catches for 255 yards and one touchdown this season) did not make the trip due to a personal problem, and wide receiver Russell Gage is out with an ankle injury.
That means Cordarrelle Patterson, who caught three touchdown passes last week, will see an important role again. The Jets, too, will see plenty of rookie winger Kyle Pitts.
How will this young Jets team handle success? Will the Jets build on last week’s victory or will they stumble?
“I feel like we’re improving,” Saleh said.
Sunday in London could tell us how much better.
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