"There was no quit in our guys."

NFL preseason finales can be drab affairs, and so the Jets backups were struggling to get something going facing a 19-3 deficit against the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles' backups with almost the entire fourth quarter remaining at MetLife Stadium on Friday night.

Then the "no quit" that first-year head coach Aaron Glenn referred to several times in his postgame remarks rose up hot as QB Adrian Martinez and the Jets offense caught fire, moving to two long-drive touchdowns and then getting within a 60-yard field goal with a minute to play of pulling out an improbable 20-19 victory.

As Glenn well knew, it didn't matter that he opted not to try that long FG, that Martinez's fourth-down pass sailed wide of Jamaal Pritchett, and that the Jets lost, 19-17. What did matter to AG was that the Jets' twos and threes — only one projected regular-season starter in rookie RT Armand Membou started vs. the Eagles — like not just roster spots but a playoff berth was at stake.

"That was probably one of the most exciting preseason games I've been a part of," Glenn said with a smile. "There's a number of things that I can talk about when it comes to mistakes, when it comes to penalties. I could talk about them for days. But the one thing that I am proud of about these men is they were resilient. They did not quit. They were excited on the sideline. And they tried to will themselves to win this game.

"And that's something we can build off of."

Besides that will, a few more foundational elements were put in place all training camp and even on Friday as the offense struggled through three quarters and the defense played well against Eagles fourth-team rookie QB Kyle McCord the entire game.

"I thought the defense did a pretty good job throughout this preseason. We had a hiccup when it came to the Giants, but there were some good things that they did, takeaways for one," said Glenn, whose D produced three TAs vs. Philly and six for the three-game preseason sked.

"We had two critical two-minute drives on the offensive side that were like textbook," he added about the first-half-ending field goals engineered by Martinez against the Giants and rookie free agent stater Brady Cook vs. the Eagles. "And it was good for me to be able to utilize timeouts, to be able to talk to Tanner [OC Tanner Engstrand] and let him know what my mindset was. So across the board, those things were critical."

Another pillar in the game for Glenn was the same one all head coaches and all bubble players face on every NFL team every late August.

"This is one of the toughest times of the year, because you have 90 guys on the roster," he said. "I told the guys this week that their job in this game was to make it hard on me as far as the evaluation process to make our team. But then again to put something on tape to make somebody else's team. I'm not afraid to say that to a player — that's what this league is about. And anything I can do to help those guys, I'm definitely going to help them."

Intertwined with that process of painful goodbyes is the one that Glenn and GM Darren Mougey will be tackling from now through Tuesday at 4 p.m. ET: Identify the 53 initial active roster players and 16 more practice squad players that will help them "make sure we get this roster right."

And it's quite possible that some players will make the Jets' rosters because they stated their cases forcefully, mistakes aside, in how they persevered and performed and came back in this "meaningless" final game of the preseason.

"There's a number of things we've got to fix that I'm going to talk to the players about when it comes to tomorrow's meeting," Glenn said. "But I do know one thing: These men did not quit, and they were trying everything they could to go and win this game. And I am proud of that."