Breece Hall said it first after the Jets beat the Broncos and repeated the sentiment — when it carried more weight — after an upset of the previously undefeated Eagles.
“I felt like we were the better team,” Hall said after rushing for the game-winning 8-yard touchdown in the final two minutes of a 20-14 comeback victory. “I feel like we sent that message Game 1 [beating the Bills to show] … we can compete with any team in the league.”
Hall is one of the primary reasons the Jets are a better team than the lowly Broncos, a better team than they were without him at this time last season, and can believe that they are a better team than the defending NFC champion Eagles.
“Obviously running the ball, but also in the pass game, if you get him the ball in space, he’s going to go make something happen with it,” quarterback Zach Wilson said. “My job is to keep getting him the ball.”
When the Eagles’ vaunted defensive line held Hall to 39 yards on 12 carries, Wilson and Hall connected five times to gain 54 yards through the air.
The Jets haven’t gotten as much as expected out of their receiving targets behind Garrett Wilson (32 catches for 369 yards and two touchdowns) or Allen Lazard (14 for 210 and one touchdown), but Hall could pick up some slack.
Lazard was with the Aaron Rodgers-led Packers when Aaron Jones averaged 52 receptions for 403 yards per season and caught 16 touchdown passes from 2019-22.
“Getting Breece the ball is very imperative for this offense to be successful,” Lazard said. “The more touches he has, the better the team is.
“To be able to expand his game in the passing lane as well is huge. We’re running concepts with three or four guys downfield pulling the defense deeper vertically, and for Zach to be able to drop the ball off to Breece — whether it be behind the line or just a few yards after — and for him to be able to get his yards after catch to move the sticks and get the play going is going to make it difficult for defenses to defend us.”
Could that multidimensionality be an element that fixes the Jets’ red-zone woes? After Hall’s touchdown snapped a two-week streak of eight consecutive red-zone trips without a touchdown, the Jets still rank second-to-last in the NFL in scoring touchdowns on drives that get inside the 20-yard line (29.4 percent).
Don’t tell the Jets that the Eagles “let” Hall score to regain possession.
“Seeing Breece just zoom past me, I was like, ‘He didn’t have to cut. He’s just gone,’ ” left guard Laken Tomlinson said. “It was a great feeling to finally hit pay dirt and celebrating ‘the beast’ in the end zone.”
The Jets started 6-3 last season but averaged just 80.2 rushing yards per game after their bye, including 61 over the last five of six straight season-ending losses.
Hall missed all those games and more with a torn ACL suffered on Oct. 23 and was supposed to be eased back into an early-season rotation with Dalvin Cook.
Instead, after two games of similar workloads, Hall is nearly tripling Cook’s snap count over the last four games. As the weather turns colder, expect the Jets to lean more heavily on the run.
“The other thing on top of Breece just being special is that this offensive line is really coming together … to make him even more special,” tight end Tyler Conklin said. “Breece just makes something out of nothing. Every game he is going for a 40-, 50-, 60-, 70-, 80-yard run. There’s times where he’s back there making a negative run into 10 yards.”
Hall’s boastful confidence could be as contagious as his play-making.
“He believes — just like I do, just like the rest of the offense does — that when we haven’t been looking good, it’s just because we are beating ourselves,” Zach Wilson said. “We need to find a way to stay ahead of the sticks and lean on each other. We 100 percent have the guys, and we obviously have the defense. How can we take that step?”
Clearing a path for Hall’s feet is a good place to start.