PHOENIX — Thursday looks like it will be a historic day for the Jets.
The NFL honors are Thursday night, and the winners of the AP NFL awards as well as the new Hall of Fame inductees will be announced at the event.
The Jets have a chance to hit a superfecta — with Sauce Gardner and Garrett Wilson legitimate possibilities to win Defensive and Offensive Rookie of the Year, respectively, and Joe Klecko and Darrelle Revis expected to be selected as Hall of Fame inductees.
It is hard to remember the last time the franchise had a day as good as that.
The Rookie of the Year awards will be the punctuation mark on the Jets’ remarkable 2022 draft class. Gardner and Wilson could become just the third pair of teammates to take home the awards. The Lions’ duo of Mel Farr and Lem Barney won the awards in 1967, and the Saints’ Alvin Kamara and Marshon Lattimore both won in 2017.
“That would be special,” Wilson told The Post in December about the possibility.
Gardner was named first-team All-Pro after an outstanding rookie season. He is a heavy favorite to walk away with the award Thursday. The other finalists are Lions defensive end Aidan Hutchinson and Seahawks cornerback Tariq Woolen.
“I don’t really be going too deep into individual accolades that I want, but Defensive Rookie of the Year is one of them, and I feel like I’m the best defensive rookie doing it, for real,” Gardner told The Post in December. “The guys I’ve had to go against and the stuff I’ve been doing … I feel like I’ve been going against the best that there is.”
Wilson finished the season with 1,103 receiving yards and four touchdowns in spite of all the turmoil the Jets had at quarterback. Wilson is in a tight competition with fellow finalists San Francisco quarterback Brock Purdy and Seahawks running back Kenneth Walker.
In addition to the honors for the current Jets, it should be a big night for two former Jets. Klecko has been waiting for years to get into the Hall of Fame and this should be the year. Klecko was named as one of the three senior candidates in August and needs to receive support from 80 percent of the Hall of Fame voters, something that is usually just a formality for the senior candidates. Klecko starred for the Jets for 11 seasons and was a key figure in the team’s “Sack Exchange” in the early 1980s. Klecko was a Pro Bowler at three different positions — nose tackle, defensive tackle and defensive end.
This is Revis’ first year on the ballot, and he is expected to cruise into Canton. Revis spent eight of his 11 seasons with the Jets over two stints. He was a four-time All-Pro selection and went to seven Pro Bowls. Quarterbacks rarely dared to throw at “Revis Island,” and he put together one of the best seasons ever by a Jets defender in 2009.