Jets rookie cornerback Mory Bamba performed that classic NFL preseason transition from being a household name only in his own house to being on the lips of many in the MetLife house during the Jets' preseason opener against Tampa Bay on Friday. And that includes head coach Aaron Glenn.

"I think some of the younger DBs actually showed up, and he's the one that really stands out," Glenn said of Bamba, the undrafted free agent out of BYU. "He had some good plays on special teams, too. There were a couple of mistakes that he had, and I've got to make sure I say that. But for the most part, I thought he showed off tonight."

Bamba said he felt "pretty good. It just felt good being able to play football again," adding: "It's a game of imperfect, but the biggest thing is I just kept having that next-play mentality and just played loose."

Any mistakes Bamba made disappeared in the spotlight of a player making a brilliant pro debut in his team's first game of the preseason. No. 38 was ready for the moment, so much so that his first half earned a video summary of his game from Ian Eagle and Anthony Becht from the CBS New York booth before the start of the second half.

Bamba had 4 pass defenses in the first 30 minutes, all coming in the second quarter and one breaking up a potential TD pass in the end zone.

As AG said, we've got make sure that we mention the fact that the Buccaneers didn't play their first two QBs, Baker Mayfield and Jake Browning, and went with first-year QB Connor Bazelak for the first half. Also, Bamba's game is no guarantee of success to come in the two remaining summer games or the regular season, for which he would have to make the active roster. But his Friday stat line produced several outstanding distinctions.

Personal — Bamba's 4 pass defenses came in a little more than eight minutes of that second quarter. By comparison, as a BYU redshirt senior, he had 4 PDS for the entire 14-game season, or some 840 minutes. For his four-season career with the Cougars, he had 9 PDs in 36 games.

League Preseason — Bamba is the only NFL player in the last three preseasons and one of just 7 NFL players since 2017 to record at least 4 PDs in a game. This is only the 10th preseason that TruMedia.com has been tracking preseason statistics.

Jets Preseason — Pass defense numbers are available even farther back, with the league and the Elias Sports Bureau tracking them since 2000. So we can further say that Bamba is the first Jet to be credited with 4-plus PDs in a preseason game since 2005. That summer, Atari Bigby, the undrafted FA rookie safety from Central Florida, racked up a video-game-like 6 PDs in the preseason finale at Philadelphia. Bigby didn't stick with the Jets but went on to play from 2005-10 for Green Bay and participated in the Packers' Super Bowl LXV win over the Steelers.

Jets Regular Season — It is unfair to mix preseason apples with regular-season oranges, of course, but just for comparison, we'll note that the Jets record since 1991 for most PDs in a regular-season game is Marcus Coleman's 6 in the Monday Night Miracle win over Miami in 2000. Darrelle Revis had a pair of 5-PD games, in 2007 and '09, as did Dee Milliner, both in '13. Sixteen other Jets had 4 PDs in the past 35 years, and at least one of them knows about coming up big on opening day. Glenn had 4 PDs in Bill Parcells' first game as Jets HC, at Seattle in the 1997 season opener.

That's a lot to live up to, and it's safe to say Bamba will not be posting that kind of number with any regularity as a pro. On the other hand, he's not ruling out a few more big games like Friday night against the Bucs.

"You know, the potential is always there, for sure," he said. "It was just a process and a matter of getting out there and putting it together against a pretty good team. I'd just like to thank my staff and my teammates for helping me through the way to prepare me for this."

We'll know more of what Bamba has prepared for the Jets and their fans in Preseason Week 2 at Pittsburgh, again in Friday primetime.