Brett Favre’s 443rd touchdown pass — and his first as a Jet — was a sight to behold.

Favre used a textbook-perfect play-action fake to draw the Miami Dolphins’ defense toward him, and then he launched a rocket to wide receiver Jerricho Cotchery for a 56-yard score. That pass in the first quarter of yesterday’s game at Miami gave Favre’s tenure with the Jets a nearly perfect beginning.

Favre’s second touchdown pass as a Jet was a hideous thing, a desperate heave that hung in the air forever — and came down at the goal line in the middle of the field, where Chansi Stuckey was somehow wide open for a 22-yard score. But as ugly as the pass looked as it wobbled through the air, it also reminded Jets fans exactly why they were so excited to have Favre leading their team — it came on the kind of improvisational play that has been the hallmark of Favre’s career, a fourth-and-13 on which he avoided the Dolphins’ pass rush and stayed upright just long enough for an improbable touchdown.

Those were the two highlights of an otherwise ho-hum opener for the Jets, who put together a workmanlike effort to beat the Dolphins 20-14. Both teams looked sloppy at times (which is no surprise, considering that the Jets were 4-12 last year and the Dolphins went 1-15), but the bottom line for the Jets is that they started the season with a win on the road against a division opponent, and Favre looked good in the process.

If there’s any reason to be concerned about the Favre-led passing game, it’s that Favre and Laveranues Coles didn’t always appear to be on the same page. Favre completed a five-yard pass to Coles on the Jets’ first offensive play, but that was the only pass Coles caught all day. Favre threw to Coles four more times, and all four passes fell incomplete, although the Jets did pick up a pass interference penalty on one of the incompletions.

But while Coles didn’t have much of an impact on the game, the power running of Thomas Jones looked like the perfect complement to Favre’s deep passes. Jones didn’t do anything flashy — he just lowered his shoulders and picked up 101 yards on 22 carries of hard running behind the Jets’ revamped offensive line, featuring free agent additions Damien Woody and Alan Faneca. And even Favre contributed to the running game, looking younger than his 38 years when he tucked the ball under his arm and ran for a first down on a third-and-2.

Still, for all that Favre did right, the Jets’ offense went three-and-out on three straight drives in the fourth quarter, and the man Favre replaced as the Jets’ quarterback, Chad Pennington, nearly spoiled Favre’s debut. In his first game as the Dolphins’ quarterback, Pennington led Miami to the brink of a comeback victory before his last pass was intercepted in the end zone with five seconds remaining.

Pennington’s first pass as a Dolphin was low and incomplete, and it fluttered short of its intended target without any zip on it. (In other words, it was exactly the kind of pass that made the Jets decide to replace Pennington with Favre.) But Pennington would eventually get in a groove in the Dolphins’ offense, and in the fourth quarter he led drives of 56, 53, and 43 yards. Pennington even showed some surprisingly nimble moves with the ball in his hands when he reeled off a 25-yard run — the longest of his career — only to have it called back by a penalty. Pennington isn’t as good as Favre, but he’s still good enough to start in the NFL, and the Dolphins’ front office boss, Bill Parcells, was smart to sign him.

In the end, however, a pair of young Jets defensive backs prevented Pennington from engineering a comeback. Rookie cornerback Dwight Lowery, a fourth-round draft pick from San Jose State, was very impressive all day, and in the fourth quarter he broke up back-to-back Pennington passes in the end zone to send the Dolphins away empty-handed at the end of a 56-yard drive. And second-year cornerback Darrelle Revis intercepted Pennington’s last pass with five seconds remaining to seal the win.

It was a game that had plenty of strange sights, starting during pregame warm-ups, when Dolphins linebacker Joey Porter and Jets assistant coach Bryan Cox nearly came to blows after Porter knocked a ball off a kicking tee on the Jets’ side of the field. The game also featured the return of Ricky Williams as an NFL starter; he carried 10 times for 24 yards for the Dolphins. The game’s most significant injury was to a kicker, Mike Nugent of the Jets, who hurt his thigh on his second kickoff and subsequently shanked a 32-yard field goal, grimacing and holding his leg afterward. Perhaps the strangest story of all was that the NFL claimed that Dolphins Stadium had sold out, even though thousands of seats remained empty.

Mr. Smith is a writer for Fanhouse.com