FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — It wasn’t the season they envisioned, but the New York Jets enjoyed the ending, exorcising the spell of a certain hoodie-wearing adversary.
They finally beat the New England Patriots, ending a 15-game losing streak and handing longtime tormentor Bill Belichick a going-away loss — if, in fact, it was his final game as the Patriots’ coach.
“It feels great,” linebacker C.J. Mosley said after Sunday’s 17-3 victory at snowy Gillette Stadium. “Since I’ve been here, that’s been the question every time we played them. And I can finally say, we don’t have to talk about it anymore.”
It was the NFL’s longest active streak in head-to-head play. It began in 2016 and spanned three different head coaches, from Todd Bowles to Adam Gase to Robert Saleh, who improved to 1-5 against Belichick. Saleh downplayed it during the week, but he was clearly elated after the season-ending win.
At first, Saleh credited the Patriots, saying “you’ve got to do something pretty special to be able to have a winning streak like that.” But then he acknowledged the personal satisfaction of beating a Belichick-coached team for the first time.
“If you ain’t got no haters, you ain’t popping — and he’s been popping for a very long time,” Saleh said. “So, whenever you can get a win on him, it’s always special.”
This turned out to be Belichick’s worst team in 24 seasons as the Patriots’ coach — they finished 4-13 — but that didn’t dampen the mood in the Jets’ locker room. After all, this was their first win at Gillette Stadium since the 2010 playoffs. Since then, it was one agonizing loss after another, both blowouts and heartbreakers to the coach who walked away from the Jets’ head-coaching job in 2000.
Two seasons ago, the Jets were embarrassed by Belichick & Co., 54-21, which left them fuming because they felt Belichick had run up the score. Last season, they lost on a last-second punt return for a touchdown, 10-3.
“This feels great, especially if it might be his last game,” tackle Mekhi Becton said with a big smile. “So it definitely feels great to send him out on that, for sure.”
The Jets (7-10) held the Patriots to 120 net yards on offense, the fewest in a game under Belichick. They received a huge game from Breece Hall, who rushed 37 times for 178 yards — both career highs. With every skill position player struggling on the snow-covered field, Hall outplayed everybody, powering and gliding his way to a 50-yard touchdown that sealed the outcome with 1:47 to play.
Hall finished the season with 994 rushing yards, saying he wasn’t disappointed that he came so close to the 1,000-mark — which seemed out of reach after a midseason slump.
“I really wasn’t upset because everybody in the league that watches me knows that I have the potential to be probably the best back in the NFL,” he said. “If not, I’m top two, top three.”
Hall said he wasn’t aware of the 15-game losing streak until he saw it on social media and heard players talking about in the locker room before the game. It was a big topic of conversation, several players said. Basically, they got tired of hearing about it from fans and media.
“We get to the point where you get into a situation like that, and it’s time to make some things change,” defensive end John Franklin-Myers said. “We were able to do that.”
Mosley said, “Once you put this uniform on, you’re a part of the history. So it’s our time to start changing that history and start moving things forward.”
The Jets fancied themselves as Super Bowl contenders at the start of the season, but they collapsed after Aaron Rodgers‘ season-ending Achilles injury in Week 1. This was their 13th straight year out of the playoffs (the NFL’s longest active drought) and their eighth straight losing season.
Saleh, who will return for a fourth season, pointed to the positives — three wins over playoff teams, including their first win over the Philadelphia Eagles. They won three of their last five games, capping it with a streak-busting, feel-good win over the Patriots.
“We exorcised a lot of demons this year,” Saleh said, noting that one of them was “ending this losing streak.”