This can be that moment. This can be that close-the-gap moment. It wasn’t supposed to be here this quickly. It’s here.
Year after year, coach after coach, quarterback after quarterback, the fan base has dreamed about a Jets team with the ability to not merely knock on Bill Belichick’s door, but also kick it down and punish the Hoodie and his Patriots for 60 “all gas, no mercy” eardrum-pounding football minutes.
The moment is here for the Jets (5-2) — who will debut their all-black “stealth” uniforms — and their hungry fans to band together and throw one helluva Happy Helloween party for their forever tormentors, if they can, against a proud, merciless adversary.
This can be more than a fleeting, titillating moment, it can be a symbolic moment to give fans legitimate hope that general manager Joe Douglas and head coach Robert Saleh are nourishing a precocious baby monster hungry to end the franchise’s ghastly 11-year playoff drought.
Beating the Skylar Thompson Dolphins at home is not closing any gap in the AFC East. A 1-2 record at home is not closing any gap.
A far more meaningful step would be payback to the Patriots for kicking the Jets when they were down a year ago at Gillette Stadium. Not to mention the past 12 nightmare meetings.
“We’re not trying to rebuild anymore, we’re a real football team that’s here to win some football games,” offensive lineman Connor McGovern told The Post.
Payback, clad in all black.
“I think every next game is always the most important game, so I think that this one obviously is a huge game in terms of just putting not only the division but the league on notice, right?” tight end C.J. Uzomah told The Post. “This is a huge game in making sure that people know that we’re here.”
The people who most need to know that the Jets are here are Belichick and the Patriots. The Jets have waited an entire year to avenge that 54-13 from last season.
“Saleh brought it up in a team meeting, addressed it with the whole team, but then each coach had talked about it in their own meetings as well,” one player said, “just a reminder like, ‘Hey guys, this is what they think of us, this is how they did us last year, just really, really remember that and let that be on your mind this week.’ ”
Even Jets who were not subject to that beat-down have been roiled after enduring the film review.
“I personally feel it,” said offensive guard Laken Tomlinson, a free-agent addition this past offseason. “I saw what they did.”
Zach Wilson has not yet reached the stage at which fans won’t have to worry about Belichick’s track record against young quarterbacks. It was almost as if Wilson (four interceptions in his first 10 attempts) was seeing ghosts in his first home game last season, then injured his knee in the second quarter of the rout. The loss last week of Breece Hall — not to mention Alijah Vera-Tucker — will place more of a burden on Wilson. Just because Belichick misses Tom Brady doesn’t mean he isn’t still one dangerous GOAT.
The good news is Wilson has been a cautious game manager who hasn’t turned it over for three consecutive weeks. The bad news is he also hasn’t been throwing touchdown passes for three consecutive weeks.
“I think he just needs to be himself,” Tomlinson said. “He’s doing a fantastic job managing the game. I definitely appreciate the leadership that we get from him. It’s great having a quarterback play with such confidence ‘cause you get to play with confidence, too.”
Wilson will be supported by a swaggerlicious defense that intends to make life miserable for Mac Jones.
“You got a whole bunch of misfits on one defense,” safety Will Parks said, “that’s a scary sight.” It’s a good thing to have misfits on your defense. “Just think of a bunch of misbehaving kids in one classroom. … It causes a lot of hell, don’t it?”
The 2022 Jets have been at their best in the fourth quarter.
“We kind of ground-and-pound, do body blows, and then hopefully by the end, those body blows wear on ’em,” McGovern said. “Our defense has done a great job keeping us in the games to allow us to do that.”
Defensive tackle Solomon Thomas recalls playing once in all black at Stanford.
“You feel faster, you feel cool, got the swag going, all that stuff. … It’s fun to be in all black,” Thomas said.
It will take more than all-black uniforms to spook Belichick’s Patriots.
“Gotham City coming out full effect,” Parks said.
The Jets will welcome the help.
“Let’s have that place rocking. … We need that entire Jets Nation in there making that thing as much chaos as possible while we go to war and do what we have to do to get this win,” Sheldon Rankins said.
All hands on deck. All gas, no mercy.
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