CLEVELAND -- The Ryan Fitzpatrick redemption tour opened on the road with a come-from-behind victory, and the turning point was an incomplete pass.

One week after blasting the New York Jets organization for giving up on him, Fitzpatrick responded to his one-week benching with a vintage FitzMagic performance in a 31-28 win over the winless Cleveland Browns on Sunday at First Energy Stadium.

In other words, it was short on beauty, but included plenty of moxie and a few clutch plays. Maybe Fitzpatrick was right the other day when he said he plays better when he's "pissed off." The entire team adopted that mindset at halftime, fueled by a seething Todd Bowles.

"Don't come back without a win," Bowles told the team.

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After a brutal and listless first half, Fitzpatrick saved his job, saved the season from utter ruin and saved his coach from unprecedented criticism. The Jets trailed 20-7 at halftime, looking very much like a team that had packed it in for the season. Frankly, it wouldn't have been a shock if Bowles had decided to bench Fitzpatrick in favor of neophyte Bryce Petty, who replaced the injured Geno Smith as the new No. 2 quarterback.

Yes, Fitzpatrick was that bad in the first half (3-for-14, 30 yards). Those are Christian Hackenberg-esque numbers. Bowles stuck with the beleaguered Fitzpatrick, which was his best decision of the day. The Jets were a different team in the second half. They played with energy, and they scored 24 unanswered points. Fitzpatrick threw for 198 yards on 13-for-20 efficiency in the second half.

They were dead. And then they weren't.

"We played some bad football," Fitzpatrick said of the first half, including himself in that description.

It was an impressive turnaround. Before Sunday, the Jets were 0-71 on the road when trailing by at least 13 points at halftime. We'd say it was downright remarkable if the opponent hadn't been the Browns (0-8), the NFL's laughingstock.

There was some measure of vindication for Fitzpatrick, who stepped out of character last week by claiming the owner, general manager and coaches no longer believed in him. It wasn't one of his finer moments -- he got benched because he was bad -- but maybe it stirred the underdog mentality in his soul. On Sunday, he played as if his job was riding on it. It probably was.

"No, I'm just here to try to win football games for these guys," he said, downplaying the redemption angle. "It was nice to see how we rebounded in the second half -- together."

The play of the game came on the opening drive of the third quarter, when Quincy Enunwa broke up a potential interception deep in Jets territory. If Jamar Taylor had made that play, the Jets would've been toast -- and maybe Fitzpatrick, too. Maybe Bowles would've been so desperate that he would've gone to Petty.

"I was trying to be on SportsCenter," Enunwa said. "I saw the ball in the air and I wanted to take the ball. I was going to get the ball or nobody was going to get the ball."

Given a reprieve, Ryan (Nine Lives) Fitzpatrick morphed into the 2015 version of himself, leading three straight touchdown drives. He hit Enunwa for a 24-yard touchdown and hit him again for 57 yards to set up the first of two touchdown runs by Matt Forte. The suddenly inspired defense finished it off with two takeaways.

What does it all mean?

The Jets have won two in a row and they will go on the road to face the Miami Dolphins (3-4) in a game that could vault them back into the fringe of contention. More than anything, this showed the Jets haven't quit on the season. Honestly, it appeared that was it in the first half. Cornerback Darrelle Revis was embarrassed by Terrelle Pryor, giving up six receptions for 101 yards.

The Jets made nice adjustments. They turned up the defensive pressure. They spread the ball around on offense. They got Brandon Marshall involved. They got a break from Browns quarterback Josh McCown, who stopped picking on Revis for some reason.

Hey, that's why they're the Browns. The Jets weren't complaining.