Jeff Ulbrich desperately needed some help.
The Bills had taken it to the Jets, gashed them in the ground while Josh Allen seemingly toyed with Ulbrich’s defense, and thought they would be carrying a 20-10 halftime lead into the locker room.
They thought wrong.
Rodgers, first-and-10 at his 48, launched the Hail Ulbrich from his 43. Time expired while the ball was in the air.
Allen Lazard leaped for the ball and the three Bills who surrounded him leaped with him.
Lazard came down with it.
It was Rodgers’ fourth Hail Mary TD. No other player in the NFL has more than two touchdowns on a Hail Mary since 2008.
It made Ulbrich, a 23-20 loser, look like a genius for calling a pair of timeouts at a time when a trash-talking Allen was engineering a drive that concluded with an 11-yard TD pass to Dawson Knox with 21 seconds left before intermission.
Alas, it takes more than Aaron Rodgers completing a Hail Ulbrich to beat Josh Allen.
You can blame Rodgers for not getting his team in the end zone first-and-goal at the 3-yard line, and you can blame him for not winning it when Ulbrich needed him to win it in the fourth quarter.
Rodgers threw for a season-high 294 yards. This one isn’t on him.
The real blame belongs to Ulbrich’s coveted defense and field kicker Greg Zuerlein who sabotaged the Jets and prevented them from a share of first place.
And 11 penalties that had Jets fans muttering to themselves:
Same Old Saleh Jets.
And Aaron Rodgers isn’t Josh Allen and the Jets aren’t the Bills.
Ulbrich would be forced to ask Rodgers, starting at his 30, for one last favor trailing 23-20 with 3:43 and three timeouts remaining.
He tried what amounted to a third-and-16 Hail Ulbrich, and Mike Williams slipped and Taron Johnson intercepted with 1:52 left.
Rodgers was brought here to beat Josh Allen and the Bills on a Monday night at MetLife Stadium with a share of first place on the line, no matter who, Robert Saleh or Jeff Ulbrich, was standing on the sideline as his head coach. He was brought here to end the Bills’ four-year stranglehold on the AFC East, whether Nathaniel Hackett or Todd Downing was the play-caller.
Ulbrich’s defense along with the MetLife crowd had been energized when the second half began.
This was a chippy game between rivals from the start.
Zuerlein had missed a 43-yarder off the left upright. His second miss was off the left upright in the second half.
A roughing-the-passer penalty on A.J. Espenesa had enabled Breece Hall on third-and-2 to rip off a 42-yard explosive down the left sideline to the Buffalo 3 midway through the third quarter.
MetLife Stadium: “BREEEEECE.”
But Rodgers couldn’t get it in. Ulbrich settled for the chippie FG. Jets 20, Bills 20.
It was still Jets 20, Bills 20 because a Tyron Smith holding call nullified a 4-yard Braelon Allen TD run before Taylor Rapp violently dislodged a would-be 12-yard TD pass to Garrett Wilson and Zuerlein missed a 32-yard FG.
Ulbrich’s defense had plotted mayhem for this one. It had played early on as if still in shock from the Robert Saleh firing. There was a 42-yard PI on Quincy Williams and a 23-yard PI on D.J. Reed. A 12-men-on-the-field penalty was declined because the Bills accepted a PI on Tony Adams before Allen found Dawson Knox with a 12-yard TD pass.
The offensive line had sagged late in the second quarter. Dorian Williams sacked Rodgers on first down, Morgan Moses false-started, and Epenesa beat Tyron Smith and buried Rodgers for an 8-yard sack. A holding call on Smith nullified a 4-yard Allen TD run late in the third quarter.
New play-caller Downing wisely deployed Hall in the passing game. The disappearance of Breece The Beast had been eye-opening. Hall needed to regain his swagger to keep Rodgers from attempting 54 passes and taking a beating. And so: A 21-yard reception. A 24-yard gain. Later, a 23-yard reception. And that 42-yard romp.