Burress' 3 TDs rally Jets past Chargers

When Plaxico Burress reeled in his first reception of the game and made a few ankle- breaking cutbacks to leave Antoine Cason scraping himself off the turf, he had no clue he was about to really put it to the Chargers.

"Man, I almost hurt everything trying to get out of the way," Burress joked of his 15-yard catch on the Jets' second series Sunday. "I said, 'Man, I made the first move and he didn't go for it.' I said, 'Uh-oh, I better come up with something else.' "

He came up with something, all right, just when the Jets needed it most.

Burress, who hadn't been producing the way he had hoped through his first six games as a Jet, almost singlehandedly terrorized the Chargers. Mark Sanchez threw three touchdown passes to the 6-5 wideout, including the go-ahead 3-yard score with 8:41 remaining, as the Jets earned a 27-21 victory over San Diego at MetLife Stadium.

Burress tied the personal record of three touchdown receptions he posted in the 2007 season opener against the Cowboys, when he was with the Giants. He was targeted eight times and finished with a modest four receptions for 25 yards, but with touchdown catches of 3, 4 and 3 yards, he made a huge contribution.

"We didn't plan it that way. You never plan a game plan around just one guy," said Sanchez, who completed 18 of 33 passes for 173 yards and had a red-zone interception. "We want to get the ball to all our playmakers, and I think we did. It just happened to be in the red zone when he was matched one-on-one, we gave him his chances and he ran some great routes. He got off some tough press coverage and he finished plays. He really did. He finished plays. So that was very good, to get him rolling."

The Jets' running game, which entered Sunday's action ranked 31st in the league, finally got rolling. The Jets (4-3) ran for a season-high 162 yards and Shonn Greene turned in a season-high 112 yards on 20 carries. They also went 8-for-13 in third-down conversions, something that had been an issue.

Pair all that with the Jets rattling off 17 unanswered points and blanking the Chargers' offense in the second half, and it had the players pretty giddy heading into their bye week.

"It felt like good old Jets football, Rex Ryan football," right guard Brandon Moore said. "We started early, double-teaming and moving people off the ball, getting physical with them and getting more into our zone [blocking] and giving Mark time to throw the ball off play-action. Then the defense shutting them out in the [second] half even though we spotted them seven points. It was just a total team effort."

The Chargers took a stunning early lead when Donald Butler ripped the ball away from Jets tight end Dustin Keller after a 4-yard reception and returned the fumble 37 yards for a touchdown just 1:49 into the game. After Sanchez's red-zone interception, the Chargers drove 76 yards for a 2-yard touchdown pass to Antonio Gates and a 14-3 lead 2:49 into the second quarter.

Despite their second-half offensive struggle, San Diego (4-2) held a 21-17 lead in the fourth quarter before the Jets' offense got it in gear, set up by Darrelle Revis' interception. Revis' 64-yard return to the Chargers' 19 gave the Jets prime field position, and five plays later, Sanchez hit Burress on a slant for a 3-yard score and a 24-21 lead, the Jets' first of the game.

"We motioned the back out of the backfield and I didn't think the guy would play me outside leverage," Burress said, "and he basically just gave me the release. I just worked him and I didn't even have time to finish the route. I beat him so bad and Mark saw it immediately and put it up."

After an interception by Kyle Wilson, Nick Folk's 30-yard field goal with 1:36 left increased the Jets' lead to six points. But it still gave the Chargers one final shot to play heartbreaker.

Philip Rivers, who threw for 179 yards and a touchdown, drove the Chargers to their own 49 but made a head-scratching decision when he threw the ball out of bounds on fourth-and-3.

"He knew it was fourth down," Chargers coach Norv Turner said. "He was trying to make a play. We would have been better off on the third- down play if we had gotten out of bounds. He was trying to get it to Gates and the ball got away."

Now it's the Jets' time to get away -- for a few days, at least -- before they return to action with AFC East battles against the Bills and Patriots in consecutive weeks.

"We just feel like we're hitting our stride now," Ryan said. "This is the football team we think we have. We had more than hiccups along the way. Here we are. We know what's up next. We've got two of our divisional teams. As everybody says, they're ahead of us. No question. Well, we'll see what happens."