Jets' Xavier Gipson enjoys happy return after never punting on himself 

How they come up with such data, no one really knows, but according to NFL NextGen Stats, when Xavier Gipson caught the overtime punt at the Jets’ 35-yard line in Monday night’s game against the Bills, he had less than a 1% chance of scoring . . . 0.8%, to be exact.

Odds, however, have never been an obstacle for Gipson.

If they were, he wouldn’t have been on the field in the first place. He wouldn’t have made the Jets’ roster as an undrafted wide receiver and special-teamer. He wouldn’t have been the darling of this season’s “Hard Knocks.” He wouldn’t have been given a chance to show what he could do at the team’s rookie minicamp. He wouldn’t have grinded through an FCS career at Stephen F. Austin in Texas after being too small to get noticed by the bigger schools.

And he certainly wouldn’t have called his shot on what instantly became the biggest play of his life.

Yes, before he ran out on the field for that punt, he turned to his teammate and mentor, Randall Cobb, on the sideline.

“He told me that if they kicked it to him, he was going to take it to the house, and that’s exactly what he did,” Cobb told Newsday this past week.

Did he believe the kid?

“It was possible,” Cobb said. “But you never know.”

Sixty-five sprinting, swerving, decelerating and accelerating yards later, Gipson was in the end zone and the Jets had beaten the Bills, 22-16. It was just the third walk-off punt return in overtime in NFL history, and it took Gipson a little over four hours into his career to do it.

“I wouldn’t say I called it but . . . yeah, I called it,” Gipson told Newsday with that omnipresent smile that has endeared him to his teammates and already has made him a fan favorite for the Jets. “After the first couple of punt returns, I saw what they were doing and I knew that if he shanked it just a little bit to the middle of the field, we’d have a shot. And he did that . . . You get a feeling throughout the game.”

Gipson wasn’t the only one who had that premonition.

“I’m going to speak for our entire locker room and say we knew he was going to get one today,” Jets coach Robert Saleh said after the win, perhaps exaggerating the collective clairvoyance of the team . . . but only a little bit. “That kid is electric with the ball in his hands. If I am a team, I am not kicking to him. But let him keep proving it. None of us in the locker room are surprised he took one.”

The player who has become his closest friend on the team, fellow undrafted wide receiver Jason Brownlee, certainly wasn’t. Ever since they made it through roster cuts together, the two of them have been in a friendly race to see who would be first to make a major impact in a regular-season game.

Gipson won.

Brownlee was happy to lose.

“With us being undrafted, expectations are low,” Brownlee said. “I told him to keep his own expectations high and don’t worry about the outside . . . For him to be doing what he’s doing now is all part of the plan. We saw a vision before everybody else saw it because we would always talk about stuff like this. We were just waiting on the opportunity to show what we can do.”

Does that mean Brownlee is next?

“It’s coming,” he said.

The whirlwind for Gipson hasn’t stopped since those moments when he somehow managed to salvage what was promising to be the most depressing game in recent Jets history, thanks to the loss of Aaron Rodgers to a season-ending Achilles tear.

As the lights at MetLife Stadium began to strobe in celebration, he gave a quick wave to the crowd — which some Jets said was the loudest they ever heard it on that play — and was swarmed by coaches and players in the end zone. He was swarmed again when he entered the postgame locker room with the ball still tucked under his arm (it’s being painted up by the equipment staff and Gipson said he’ll probably deliver it to his mom in Dallas, possibly this weekend when the Jets play the Cowboys, if it’s ready).

The following day he was named AFC Special Teams Player of the Week and then was named Pepsi’s Rookie of the Week. For that he received a gaudy wrestling-style belt that he was staring at while sitting at his locker on Friday.

“My first trophy,” he said, staring at it in its box.

He tried it on around his waist earlier, he said.

“It’s kind of big on me,” he said. “I like it though.”

The awards may be oversized for him, but Gipson has shown the Jets that the NFL is not. That’s been their impression of him since they first started scouting him in the pre-draft process.

“Nothing is too big for this kid,” special teams coordinator Brant Boyer said. “When I worked him out, that is what I really liked about him. Nothing is too big for him, and he doesn’t get starry-eyed and doesn’t let a situation dominate him and he has done a heck of a job.”

Now the job is to keep him level. Cobb spent most of the summer as Gipson’s hype man, building his confidence and telling just about everyone he could that the Jets had something special in him. This week he’s shifted and is making sure Gipson stays humble.

“I gave him the example that in my first career game, I had a 108-yard kickoff return and a receiving touchdown,” Cobb said. “And then the next week I ran into my own man and fumbled and the Panthers scored on that possession. It’s a reminder that you have to put it in every week and you never have arrived.”

Gipson said he understands that. Heck, he’s lived most of his football life that way.

“It molded me up to be the person I am,” he said of his unlikely journey through other people’s skepticisms and doubts. “You come to rookie minicamp, you think you’ve made it, but in reality, you haven’t made anything yet. I scored a touchdown last week? It doesn’t mean anything. What now? What can you achieve now?”

Gipson recalled how he muffed the first NFL punt he saw in the Hall of Fame Game last month.

“That molded me too,” he said. “If I didn’t have that drop, I wouldn’t know how to react to this.”

Saleh said there is more for Gipson to grow into for the Jets, and not just as a punt and kickoff returner.

“Eventually he will show up as a receiver,” Saleh said. “He has a chance to be a really good receiver too.”

Whatever he winds up doing, Gipson likely will do it with that suddenly famous grin of his.

“He has an unbelievable smile on his face,” Saleh said. “He is easy to get along with. He is a special individual.”

Gipson certainly had reason to smile this past week, but why was he always doing it even before he made his big NFL splash?

“Because I’m here,” he said. “Even in training camp I was smiling. Minicamp I was smiling. Rookie minicamp. A lot of people don’t get these opportunities. But that’s anywhere in life. I smile because a person might have more than me, but I got something. I got something.”

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.