It’s certainly not like the September series between the Mets and Nationals from 2019.

That year, when the Mets traveled to Nationals Park, just as they did this week for their series that began with an 11-5 win on Tuesday, Pete Alonso hit his MLB-leading 45th home run and Zack Wheeler won his 10th game on Sept. 4 to take two of three in the series.

They still trailed the Nationals by 7 ½ games for the final wild-card spot, but the series, at least, mattered. Two wins meant they gained ground. And with a month of baseball remaining, anything was possible.

The Nationals kept winning and took the World Series. The Mets missed the playoffs. The Nationals started a rebuild two years later by trading Max Scherzer, Trea Turner and then, in 2022, Juan Soto. The Mets went all-in by adding Scherzer, Justin Verlander and compiling the largest payroll in MLB history.

And for two nights this September, with their playoff fates all but sealed, their distinct paths toward relevancy will converge.

This time, the games won’t matter, but perhaps there’s a lesson for Steve Cohen’s group: The Nationals were a team in the darkness that the Mets are currently engulfed by, and now, they’re starting to claw out of it.

The Mets’ front office has always talked about wanting to be the next Dodgers. There’s always the standard of the Braves, too. But 245 miles south of Citi Field, where so many doubts and questions keep swirling, there’s a template emerging for what can happen when a rebuild is done correctly.

It wasn’t something the Nationals would’ve expected after defeating the Astros in 2019 and reaching baseball’s pinnacle for the first time in franchise history.

Pitcher Stephen Strasburg signed a seven-year, $245 million deal after earning World Series MVP. Starter Patrick Corbin had signed a six-year, $140 million contract the previous winter. Alongside Scherzer, the Nationals had a deep rotation that, on paper, complemented a batting order — with Turner and Soto at its center — with key members intact.

They finished eight games under .500 during the condensed 2020 season, though, and by the following trade deadline, their sale had begun by trading Scherzer and Turner to the Dodgers.

Their return, across a variety of deals, two years later: Josiah Gray (ace of the future), Keibert Ruiz (catcher of the short-term future), MacKenzie Gore (4.26 ERA through 26 starts in 2023), CJ Abrams (shortstop of the future), James Wood (the team’s No. 2 prospect, per MLB prospect rankings), Robert Hassell (No. 8) Kevin Made (No. 15), DJ Herz (No. 16).

And, by finishing with a record so poor that they earned the No. 2 overall pick, the Nationals also added former LSU outfielder Dylan Crews, who instantly became their top prospect. They drafted outfielder Elijah Green, a powerful hitting prospect out of IMG, at No. 5 overall in the 2022 MLB Draft, too.

That completely re-tooled their farm system, similar to the Mets’ approach in July when they acquired Luisangel Acuña (No. 1), Drew Gilbert (No. 2), Ryan Clifford (No. 6), Marco Vargas (No. 8) and Justin Jarvis (No. 15). Their lineup Tuesday night featured the four Baby Mets — Brett Baty, Francisco Alvarez, Ronny Mauricio and Mark Vientos — altogether, too.

Sure, Mets general manager Billy Eppler tried to avoid labeling this year’s surrender as a “fire sale.” But when the Scherzer deal stacked with David Robertson, Verlander, Dominic Leone, Tommy Pham and Mark Canha leaving? That’s a sale. That’s a liquidation sale — complete with the “EVERYTHING MUST GO” print.

It meant that there’d be plenty of losing, just like the Nationals dropping 97 games in 2021 and 107 in 2022. Only having 77 losses with a month to go marks improvement. Washington still sits far away from clinching a postseason berth, but they’ve avoided the nadir of a baseball season — that kind of century mark — through it all, too.

It’s difficult to say whether the Nationals are ahead of or behind schedule with their rebuild. Some take years. Some take decades. That’s especially the case in baseball, where one player — one home run of a draft pick — can’t alter a franchise’s trajectory, such as Victor Wembanyama with the Spurs or Joe Burrow with the Bengals.

Even as their rebuild continues, though, the Mets should arguably remain in better position than the Nationals because of Cohen’s willingness to spend. The Mets can always try to buy success, even though it didn’t work this year. One of these seasons it might work.

But the Nationals (a payroll of $93 million) only trailing the Mets (payroll around $343.5 million) by 1 ½ games entering the series speaks volumes. It took a while for the Nationals to find that light at the end of the tunnel of irrelevancy. General manager Mike Rizzo and manager Dave Martinez seemed like candidates to get fired, and instead, they’re both reportedly nearing extensions.

Washington had to trade the players they did. It had to compile the depth, and breadth, of prospects that Rizzo acquired. It had to wait and wait — and keep waiting — until everyone was ready.

So even if the Mets take a different route to get there, even if there are still more trades and ugly seasons to come, there’s a light for them, too. The Nationals, losing and all, might’ve provided a blueprint.

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Everyone knew that Aaron Rodgers would be the star of “Hard Knocks.”

It was the logical choice. He was the four-time NFL MVP. The Super Bowl champion. The 39-year-old who brought his Hall of Fame talent — and all the off-field headlines — to the Jets. That’s exactly what the show needed.

The HBO series, which aired its fifth and final episode of the summer Tuesday night, certainly spent time showcasing the honeymoon stage between Rodgers and his new team. Though Rodgers and head coach Robert Saleh opposed their appearance before the taping began, they turned into the pivotal characters. So, too, did Quinnen Williams, Sauce Gardner, Garrett Wilson and a few  who didn’t make the Jets’ 53-man roster, such as Jerome Kapp (who imitated Eminen in his rookie show appearance) and Tanzel Smart (the defensive lineman whose wife and child made appearances).

The show mostly avoided that drama, though. The episodes were mostly straightforward, with the exception of some training camp shoving and f-bomb rants from Rodgers and Saleh.

Everything gets real for the Jets on Monday, though, when they open the season against the Bills. The 2010 Jets, the last edition of this franchise to appear on the show, turned their preseason spotlight into a postseason run to the AFC Championship game.

“Hard Knocks” has always been about the struggling teams. It’s part of the criteria to make the show in the first place. It has always been about the conflict, the tension, the frustration from not making the playoffs turned into a short snapshot of why this could finally be the year.

The Jets could become the show’s greatest success story. Or they could stumble like other subjects. The obvious elements of the show have come and gone. Next, it’ll become clear if the Jets belonged in front of the cameras in the first place.

It’s up to Ben Shelton — at 20 years old, in just his fifth major appearance — now.

It’s up to him to salvage an end to the U.S. Open that was supposed to represent the future of United States men’s tennis, with three Americans in the quarterfinals for the first time since 2005. Two of them met Tuesday night, with Shelton defeating No. 10 Frances Tiafoe 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 (9-7), 6-2.

And because No. 9 Taylor Fritz lost in straight-sets to No. 2 Novak Djokovic earlier in the day, Shelton remains the last American standing with the opportunity to clinch the country’s first singles major title since Andy Roddick at the 2003 U.S. Open.

Shelton remained composed in a pivotal third set, when he overcame a pair of double faults to take the tiebreaker — and then eventually take the match. He’s the lowest-ranked American to reach the men’s semifinals since 1991, according to ESPN Stats & Info.

But when Fritz — the highest-ranked American male entering the U.S. Open — lost 6-1, 6-4, 6-4 in the afternoon, it appeared as if a day that was supposed to make the identity for Roddick’s replacement clearer would provide a reminder of how far the country’s top talent still has to go.

The U.S. Open still marked progress, though. The path to passing Djokovic and No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz, who plays against Alexander Zverev in the quarterfinals Wednesday, won’t materialize overnight, but rather through a gradual match-by-match, tournament-by-tournament approach that eventually ends with someone taking a Grand Slam tournament title. If Fritz had pulled the upset, it would’ve guaranteed a representative from the country in Sunday’s championship.

Since Roddick won the country’s last singles major title, Roger Federer won 19 titles, Rafael Nadal won 22 and Djokovic has won 23, with his most recent at the 2023 French Open giving him the all-time record.

Alcaraz, who took last year’s U.S. Open and this year’s Wimbledon, appears poised to emerge as the next threat to the Grand Slam singles title record, though it’ll be years until that has a chance of happening.

During that time, it remains unclear if the United States will have a men’s tennis star who can compete for those Grand Slams regularly.

Coco Gauff has emerged as a likely option for women’s tennis, with the 19-year-old advancing to the semifinals thanks to her victory against Jelena Ostapenko on Tuesday. Gauff, Jessica Pegula and Madison Keys all sit within the WTA’s top 20, too.

The American men have Fritz, Tiafoe, Tommy Paul (No. 14), Christopher Eubanks (No. 30), Sebastian Korda (No. 31) and Mackenzie McDonald all within the top 40, too, but that has not translated to a championship.

Then, Shelton emerged. He’d be the storybook winner. The one who snapped the streak. The one that could win again. The one who showed that for all of the ground American tennis still has erase, perhaps they’re closer than ever before.