Aaron Glenn tried to play Piggy in the Middle with the Broncos in London — and wound up playing the goat instead.
With a minute left in the first half of Sunday’s game and momentum relaxing on Denver’s sideline, Glenn and the Jets dialed up a fake punt on 4th-and-1 from their 37-yard line. It wasn’t exactly subtle. Darren Rizzi, the Broncos’ special teams coordinator, sniffed it out. Sean Payton cracked postgame that his wife would’ve known it was a fake. Nonetheless, first-year Jets head coach Glenn pulled off an aggressive call and had some clock and two timeouts to put New York in the driver’s seat.
Then, after using his third timeout after a second-down sack of Jets quarterback Justin Fields and a 6-yard completion to Josh Reynolds on third down, Glenn let the clock tick on 4th-and-1.
And tick.
And tick.
And suddenly, Glenn and the Jets headed to halftime without running a play in the nearly 40 seconds at their disposal, a move that baffled both their loyalists in New Jersey and the Broncos’ sideline across the pond.
“We were waiting — either a Hail Mary, or something,” Payton said postgame. “And then the clock just ran out, so.
“That was a little surprising. That’s unusual.”
Jets star receiver Garrett Wilson got in Glenn’s ear on a slow trudge back to the halftime locker room, as Glenn attempted to explain the rationale for not taking a strike on fourth-and-short.
“I just didn’t know exactly what the plan was,” Wilson told reporters in the locker room postgame in a video captured by New York station SNY. “Once I figured it out, I was disappointed. I’ll just say that.”
Glenn explained postgame that he knew New York would get the ball at the start of the second half.
“Once it got to fourth down — guys, I’m not about to sit there and try to get a play off, they would get the ball back,” Glenn said. “And I think they had a timeout left, and give them a chance to kick a field goal, I don’t think that’s the smartest thing to do. So let’s just end the half. We get the ball back and see if we get a chance to score.”
They did, nailing a field goal on a drive at the start of the third quarter. But the Jets advanced the ball to that spot — their own 47-yard line — on just three trips for one field goal in the entirety of the second half. And the effort to keep the ball out of the Broncos’ hands wasn’t quite needed, as Denver mustered just one second-half field goal in a disjointed offensive performance.
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