Afterward, Justin Fields, their much-maligned quarterback who’d been benched a week ago and then publicly ripped by team owner Woody Johnson, admitted a few days ago he had been crouched in the closet of his home and sobbing.
But when his replacement was too injured to play Sunday, Fields stepped in and gave a gutsy, almost flawless performance.
Along with a touchdown pass and no interceptions, he converted two two-point conversion plays after touchdowns, one which he ran, one which he threw.
And then came the game-winner.
Breece Hall, who’d run for 133 yards and two scores, turned a late scamper with under two minutes left into a four-yard halfback pass – complete with a double pump to befuddle the Bengals’ defender – to the leaping rookie tight end Mason Taylor in the back of the endzone
The touchdown tied the game and Folk’s point-after kick gave the Jets the lead … and, after a defensive stand, the victory.
“He was a great leader,” Folk said quietly. “He always tried to bring the team along with him whenever he could.
“At the end, he was there with us.”
Although this will go down as the most improbable victory of the first half of the NFL season, Folk’s emotion was triggered by the tremendous loss that had eclipsed the day.
He was talking about the sudden death of Nick Mangold, the Jets iconic former center out of Alter High School and Ohio State.
Mangold died Saturday night after a long battle with chronic kidney disease.
Just 14 days ago in a heartbreaking letter posted on social media, Mangold opened up about his condition. He said he had been diagnosed just before he entered the league as a first-round pick in 2006.
After an ironman career – he started 171 games in 11 seasons, played in seven Pro Bowls and was enshrined in the Jets’ Ring of Honor in 2022 – the much-beloved Mangold said he was on dialysis and needed a kidney transplant.
“Unfortunately, I do not have any family able to donate at this time, so this is why I’m reaching out to you, our NY Jets and Ohio State communities,” he wrote. “I am in need of a kidney donor with type O blood.”
He was just 41.
He is survived by his wife Jenny, who was his high school sweetheart, and four children: Matthew, Eloise, Thomas and Charlotte.
The Jets announced his death about an hour before the start of Sunday’s game.
Just before kickoff, the Bengals asked the standing crowd for a moment of silence in Mangold’s honor.
In so doing, many there likely flashed on the indelible image of No. 74, the beefy lineman who grew up less than an hour north of the stadium in Centerville.
He was known for his trademark strawberry blond beard and often wore a skullcap or a backwards turned ball cap over his long blonde locks. Flashing his beaming, toothy smile he once told me to describe his look as “blonde and beautiful.”
The 40-year-old Folk, in his 18th NFL season, was the only person on the Jets roster to have played with Mangold.
“He was a great teammate who worked his tail off,” he said. “He was larger than life and just a phenomenal human being.
“I’m just praying for his wife and kids. This is a very sad day. All the way around, it’s just so sad.”
While no one else knew Mangold like Folk did, there was one player across the dressing room who was tied to him in many ways.
Josh Myers, the current Jets’ center, is from Miamisburg High.
Along with the Miami Valley connection, he too was a star lineman at Ohio State and now anchors the same NFL line.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
While Mangold played his entire NFL career – from 2006 through 2016 – in New York, this is Myers first season with the Jets. He started his career in Green Bay.
“With me growing up in Dayton and being an offensive lineman, I was a huge fan of his,” Myers said. “Nick Mangold was just a legend to me, to everyone in the area. Everyone loved him.
“He had an unbelievable career everywhere he went from Alter to Ohio State to the Jets.
“A lot of the guys in here might be too young to remember him, but I bet every offensive lineman knows about him and what he did and meant to this team.”
Myers turned to stuff some of the last of his belongings into a duffel bag before he’d go out to see his family and friends waiting for him just outside of the stadium.
He thought again of Mangold and his family and shook his head:
“This is just so incredibly, incredibly sad.”
Immediately after a raucous postgame celebration in the dressing room, head coach Aaron Glenn, a former Jets player himself, came out to meet a small press corps. As he started to talk about the excitement of the moment, he suddenly stopped and switched gears:
“I hate I didn’t start with this because this means more to me than anything.
“Nick Mangold’s passing away …He was the heart and soul of this team. He always made his appearance (his presence) felt.
“I didn’t play with him, but I was here as a scout when he played. He was a true Jet.
“This is tough to hear. He had a number of kids. My prayers go out to his wife and family.”
‘Way too young’
I first started writing about Mangold 23 years ago when he was a freshman backup lineman on the Ohio State team that upset Miami in a double-overtime thriller in Arizona to win the national title.
Soon his late dad, Vern, was calling me almost every week to give me updates. Later he’d do the same when daughter Holley, who for a while dwarfed her brother at 350 pounds, became the first girl in Ohio history to play the line on her high school team.
She went on to become a super heavyweight power lifter and represented the United States at the 2012 London Olympics.
She had the same grit as her brother. Although a novice in the competition and having severely damaged ligaments and tendons in her wrist, she kept competing and finished 10th.
Mangold, who had three sisters, was a unique mix of toughness in football and caring and love in the community and especially with his family. He wrapped it all in an oversized personality that was highlighted by his sense of humor.
Before the 2005 Fiesta Bowl game against Notre Dame, he held court with the media and teased his pal A.J. Hawk, the fellow Buckeye out of Centerville High, as was their third amigo, OSU kicker Mike Nugent.
Mangold needled Hawk about his fame, his looks and his girlfriend (and now wife) Laura Quinn, the sister of Irish quarterback Brady Quinn.
“A.J.’s got it all,” Mangold said as Hawk, sitting nearby, squirmed and turned red. “One day I want to be his pool boy or his gardener or just the guy who gets his groceries.”
Adept at teasing and one-liners, he could also be tender and often at Christmas he dressed as Santa Claus, though he didn’t have to change character. He was the benevolent big man.
And he was loyal.
You heard that Sunday when Rex Ryan, the Jets former coach and now an analyst on ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown, had to fend off tears during the broadcast as he talked about his former center.
“It’s brutal. Such a great young man.
“I remember it was obvious I was getting fired. My last game, Mangold’s injured, like injured. He comes to me and says, ‘I’m playing this game.’ He wanted to play for me.
“That’s what I remember about this kid. He was awesome and just way too young. I feel so bad for his wife and family.”
In the letter Mangold posted on Oct. 14, he wrote: “I always knew this day would come, but I thought I would have had more time.”
‘He was there with us’
After Sunday’s game, I accompanied Myers from the Jets’ dressing room to a waiting crowd just beyond the stadium tunnel.
“Oooh, I’ve got a lot of people here today,” he said when he saw the contingent, several of them wearing his No.71 jersey.
It reminded me of another time – after the Jets knocked the Bengals out of the playoffs, 24-14 here in January of 2010.
That day I walked out with Mangold, who wore faded blue jeans with a frayed back pocket, a white Polo shirt, boots with no socks and a black New York Yankees cap on backwards.
He headed straight to a group that included his wife, his parents, his younger sister Maggey, some former Alter High teammates and Knights head coach Ed Domsitz.
“This feels fantastic,” said Mangold, who then, like now, lived in New Jersey. “This good Ohio air is refreshing. It’s awesome to be able to come home, though I didn’t actually get (to Centerville, his hometown), but just knowing I’m on Ohio soil is a good feeling.”
He ended his Oct. 14 letter mentioning Ohio again.
“While this has been a tough stretch, I’m staying positive and focused on the path ahead. I’m looking forward to better days and getting back to full strength soon.
“I’ll see you all at MetLife Stadium and The Shoe very soon.”
That won’t happen now.
But Sunday at Paycor Stadium, Nick Folk, for one, didn’t believe Nick Mangold was completely gone:
“At the end, he was there with us.”
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