I swear I am not always one of these people. I typically abide by the Angels In the Outfield guidelines for supernatural interference in sporting events. That there are specific rules and timing. That there are absolutely angels among us, but those of us here on earth never get to know when and why they’ll come. 

So I was glad when Jets kicker Nick Folk confirmed as much after the Jets got their first win of the season on Sunday in a 39–38 victory over the Bengals, telling reporters in the locker room that, “At the end, he was there with us.” 

Folk would know better than anyone. The he Folk was referring to was Nick Mangold, the team’s center from 2006 to ’16, who tragically died of kidney disease on Sunday at the age of 41 and born and raised less than an hour’s drive from where the game was played. Mangold was a Zeus among men. He had an 11-year Jets career, with seven seasons ending in Pro Bowls. He had a life after football devoted to community service and his family in New Jersey. For those of us who had the privilege of watching him play up close, watching him hold court, watching his coaches heap the entire complexity of a game plan and all its intricacies on Mangold’s shoulders every week, there was no doubt that the reverberations of his joy, strength, courage, intellect, wit and charm were forceful enough to remain here on earth, long after he was gone. 

And maybe, just maybe, we got to witness a little of that in real time.

When Jets running back Breece Hall double-clutched a halfback pass—the significance of which was not lost on every Jets fan there, given that a similar halfback toss in a critical fourth-down situation earlier in the game had doomed the offense and led to a lively discussion between the coach and the offensive coordinator on the sidelines, but was then used to set up a game-winning play—his decision to let it fly into a crowded end zone, to a rookie tight end, caused an immediate hands-over-eyes reflex. Instant agita. 

Mason Taylor was open the first time Hall went to throw. Then, the flow of the play changed and the open space winnowed. But at some point, it didn’t seem to matter. The defensive back guarding Taylor had turned away from Hall, and Taylor elevated just enough to pluck it over his head. 

Bengals quarterback Joe Flacco, playing most of this month seemingly in the body of a much younger man, jogged out of the locker room and, presumably, away from medical attention aiming to foil the victory with a field goal. These days, it seems easier to get into field goal range than it is to get approval for a credit card. 

But that didn’t matter, either. A once-porous defense collected itself for one stand. A fourth-down attempt skidded on the ground and so culminated the most bittersweet of 1–7 locker rooms in recent NFL history.

It was so fitting that this was the most Jets-ian of fairy tales. Less Hans Christian Andersen and more Cormac McCarthy. The quarterback was benched in Week 7 and then blamed for the team’s struggles by the owner, then the backup got hurt and the original starter, Justin Fields, had to come back and start the game. Fields was excellent, throwing for 244 yards and a touchdown, and rushing 11 times for 31 more yards. Hall, who rushed for 133 yards and two touchdowns in addition to his passing score, gave an interview with the broadcast crew before the game about how his performance could very well be an audition for some other team somewhere else at the trade deadline. Aaron Glenn, whose game management has been under relentless fire, pulled the trigger on a brilliant two-point conversion attempt that cut a 14-point deficit to six and eventually gave the Jets a one-point win. 

So often the type of circumstances like we saw heading into this game are the recipe for a familiar feeling that fans of this team talk about with regularity. An inedible concoction that is served weekly, like cod liver oil but without the health benefits. However, once in a while, the chaos, the unbelievable, table-slamming, eye-rolling chaos, snowballs into a victory that no one sees coming. And it makes those wins beautiful and memorable and strange; familiar specifically to those who get it. 

Mangold knew this section of the cosmos well. His Jets teams were forged by it and remain the last ones to overcome it to such a significant degree. Back-to-back AFC title game runs in 2009 and ’10 thanks in such large part to the offensive line he piloted, the locker room he kept just below a boiling temperature and the fans he kept miraculously believing that something great could happen. 

It happened much of the time when Mangold was on the field. It did again on Sunday. I would venture to say that wasn’t a coincidence. 

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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Jets’ Gutsy Win Over Bengals Was a Fitting Tribute to Nick Mangold.