Garner Took Advantage of Possession

When Jet quarterback Vinny Testaverde hit receiver Wayne Chrebet on a four-yard touchdown pass with 1:52 to play in Saturday’s wild-card playoff game against the Oakland Raiders at Network Associates Coliseum, it gave New York brief hope of prolonging its season.

The Raiders still led, 31-24. But if the Jets could recover an on-side kick, they still had two timeouts left with which to work.

Could they pull it out?

We’ll never know.

Surprisingly, New York Jet Coach Herman Edwards ordered kicker John Hall to boom the ball downfield. Edwards would give the Raiders their four downs, use his two timeouts and hope he could hold them and get the ball back.

If all went well, the Jets would have one more shot with no timeouts and less than a minute to play.

All didn’t go well.

On a third-down sweep around the right side from his own 20-yard line, Raider running back Charlie Garner raced all the way to the end zone to put the game out of reach.

“There was still so much time remaining ... I felt it was the right thing to do,” Edwards said. “We didn’t want to let them get in field-goal range.”

When he reached field-goal range, Garner was hitting stride.

The Raiders gave the Jets a look they hadn’t seen when the two teams played last Sunday, going to a no-huddle offense at the start of each half.

“Given the Jets had a short week,” said Raider Coach Jon Gruden, “we wanted to get the tempo going. I was not happy with our tempo going to the line of scrimmage. I wanted much more speed in and out of the huddle.”

Jet defensive end John Abraham, suffering from flu symptoms, came out in the second quarter and did not return.