In each of Kellen Clemens’ three National Football League starts, the young quarterback has displayed veteran poise in the fourth quarter.
“The most important thing for me would be just to be known as a guy who gives his team a chance to win,” Clemens said Tuesday. “That's the most important thing about our position is that the team wins games when you're in there.”
Despite the knack for comebacks, the Jets don’t want to find themselves down by a whole bunch at Texas Stadium this afternoon. The Cowboys are 9-1 after 10 games and many pundits believe the 'Pokes will make a Super Bowl appearance in February.
Dallas has the NFL’s ninth-ranked defense but is 24th against the pass. The Cowboys do have 15 interceptions, though, with FS Ken Hamlin (5) and CB Anthony Henry (4) leading the way. Terence Newman, a 5’11”, 181-pound corner, sealed Sunday’s win over the Redskins with a theft.
“I think they have a lot of guys who have very good ball skills. If you put one up in the air, they have the talent to go and track it and maybe take it out of the air at its highest point,” Clemens said. “They are a talented group. At the same time they have played some talented teams who have been able to throw on them — New England being one of them.”
Clemens has had barely enough time to lift his head out of the playbook to think about the hype surrounding today's contest — the sixth Turkey Day game in franchise history, the third since the Titans became the Jets in 1963, and the Jets' first since their 1985 loss at Detroit.
For the first time in his young career, KC will appear and start on national television in a regular-season game.
“I have been so busy trying to get a week's worth of preparation in the last two days that the national TV audience and all that had not even crossed my mind,” he said of the CBS game, which will kick off at 4:15 EST. “It kind of goes back to my approach — to control the things that I have control over. The national audience is awesome, but our focus is on us and preparing to win this game.”
Regarding that comeback ability of his, in his most recent action, the second-year passer helped the Jets force overtime and eventually upset the Steelers with a masterful late-fourth-quarter drive. Trailing by three, he drove the offense 76 yards against the NFL’s top-ranked defense before Mike Nugent forced OT with a chip-shot field goal.
Before the Jets’ bye, Clemens led the Jets on another fourth-quarter scoring march to force a deadlock against Washington. While they would finally succumb to the Redskins in overtime, Clemens put his team in position to win. He led a 16-play, 64-yard drive that culminated in Nugent’s 30-yard field goal with 15 seconds left in regulation.
Back in September, Clemens was a dropped pass away from bringing the Jets all the way back from a 17-point deficit in Baltimore. So there is a trend of playing well late developing even if Clemens can’t put his finger on it.
“I've thought about that and I don't really know. It's a testament, I think, to our defense, and in a lot of ways that gives us an opportunity down the stretch to get the ball back and to go down and either kick a field goal or hopefully get a touchdown,” he said. “But as far as anything about me individually, I don't think there's anything that I'm doing.”
Clemens traced back to his Pac-10 days at Oregon when asked about a top comeback. In a memorable shootout at Washington State, he threw for three TDs and 437 yards and also ran for three TDs.
“We beat Washington State at Washington State my junior year in a pretty close game, a pretty high-scoring game,” he said. “I think it was 41-38 and we scored with a little over a minute to go. That was probably the biggest one. I think we were down 14 or 17 points at one point.”
Another opportunity beckons for Clemens. He has the chance to help the Jets to their first win streak of the year, and knocking off Pittsburgh and Dallas in a five-day span would be an impressive feat. But the emerging leader is not ready to call the Green & White his team.
“It’s not a matter of whose team it is. I'm trying to be more of a leader as I progress, but it's not a matter of it's his team or it's some other guy's team,” he said. “We have a lot of different leaders on this team and I think that helps in various situations.”
