Five Rock-Solid Predictions For The Jets 2021 Season
Coming off a 2-14 2020 campaign, it shouldn’t be hard for the Jets to meet expectations this season.
All rookie quarterback Zach Wilson has to do in 2021 is show progress and give the fans some reason to hope for a brighter future. As I wrote previously, if the Jets are now losing games 38-28 instead of 38-10, that’s a step in the right direction, no matter the final record.
Wins won’t come with any regularity until the team fixes a defense with gaping holes, and that will have to wait til next year. The most experienced player in New York’s cornerback room (not including special teams specialist Justin Hardee) will be Bryce Hall, a fifth-round draft pick in 2020!
With so many young players throughout the roster, this season isn’t easy to forecast. However, this is what I’m here for, so the following are five rock-solid predictions for the 2021 Jets:
1) Wilson will set a team record for…
Touchdown passes thrown by a rookie. I know there are several analysts who are looking at bigger fish—specifically, the 4,007 total passing yards produced by Joe Namath in 1967. Even with 17 games for Wilson, though, I just don’t see it, not with Head Coach Robert Saleh and offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur preaching a heavy, run-based philosophy.
Let’s set our sights at a more reasonable target, the 18 touchdown passes tossed by Namath in his rookie season of 1965. Sam Darnold came close with 17 in 2018, but the three games he missed due to an injury cost him a spot in the Jets record book, where Wilson’s name will be etched at season’s end.
2) The Jets pass defense will prove to be their undoing
Wilson and the offense can only keep the Jets so close. At some point, the defense has to get stops. Unfortunately. facing a pass rush devastated by the season-ending Achilles rupture to Gang Green edge rusher Carl Lawson and the aforementioned unproven (putting it kindly) corners, opposing QBs will have weekly field days when they drop back to throw.
In a new system flush with young players, expect plenty of busted coverages, missed tackles in the open field, and CBs just flat out getting toasted by the league’s elite receivers.
There are several metrics to look at, but for this purpose, I’m seeing a league-worst opponents’ QB rating in the cards.
3) Kicker Matt Ammendola will not last the season
The undrafted rookie who did not latch on to any NFL team last season won the Jets job fair-and-square with a perfect preseason. That doesn’t mean Ammendola will survive the Jason Myers Curse, so-named after prior General Manager Mike Maccagnan allowed the kicker to bolt to Seattle in free agency after earning a Pro Bowl invite as a Jet in 2018. It’s been a circus at the Jets’ Florham Park facility ever since.
Ammendola is an Oklahoma State alum, which means he has little, if any, experience kicking through the cold and windy conditions he will surely face in the AFC East, including MetLife Stadium. It won’t be Ammendola’s strong leg that lets him down this season, but his inconsistency will force General Manager Joe Douglas to make yet another change at the position.
4) Jamison Crowder will be traded by the November 2 deadline; Marcus Maye stays
The Jets reduced Crowder’s 2021 salary cap hit nearly in half (from $11.3 million to $6.35 million) with an offseason renegotiation, but the fact remains that he is a pending free agent at a position where the team would like to hand the keys to rookie Elijah Moore, with Braxton Berrios serving as a capable No. 2.
Crowder, who contracted COVID-19 over the weekend to put his status for Sunday’s season opener in Carolina in jeopardy, was always a reliable target for former QB Sam Darnold. However, Wilson seemed to have had his eyes more focused on free agent acquisition Corey Davis throughout training camp, making Crowder more expendable, though still competent enough to fetch a future fourth-or-fifth round draft pick from a contender with a need in the slot.
As for Maye, it’s not in his personality, at least that he’s shown to date, to create a stink about his contract like his former running mate in the defensive backfield Jamal Adams, who forced a trade to Seattle in the 2020 offseason. Unless the losing gets him fed up, Maye will have to ride out another season in New York and deal with the possibility of a second franchise tag in the Spring. The Jets have all the leverage and won’t otherwise feel the need to set him free without the offer of eye-popping compensation.
5) The Jets will win one exactly one division game
Hey, New York went 0-6 versus AFC East teams last season, so this counts as an improvement. It’s a division represented by young starting QBs, with Buffalo’s Josh Allen the oldest of the bunch at 25, followed by Miami’s Tua Tagovailoa and New England’s Mac Jones at 23, and Wilson is 22. Still, despite the youth, the Bills are a Super Bowl contender and, say what you will about their flaws, the Patriots and Dolphins are both vastly superior to the Jets.
I’d like to say that the one win will come in the game I will be attending in Miami in December, but I’m going with an October 24 affair in New England, with the Jets coming out of their bye week.
2021 Record: 4-13