Jets A Mystery During Quiet Offseason
On one hand, having the Jets operate in veritable silent mode this offseason has been a pleasant development. All hype and drama have been muted as Gang Green pushes through its organized team activities. Attendance for the voluntary sessions, according to new Head Coach Aaron Glenn, has been 100%, or “near 100%.”
That includes two of the team’s best players, wide receiver Garrett Wilson and cornerback Sauce Gardner, who conceivably could have made some noise about skipping participation until they get contract extensions. Both 2022 first-round picks are still subject to the terms of their rookie deals, but such holdouts are becoming more frequent around the league.
Of course, there is a reason this team can maintain such a low profile. The Jets, in their first season post Aaron Rodgers, are on the low end of the NFL’s relevancy spectrum. The league placed just two prime-time games on their schedule (they had six in the first 11 weeks last season) and the only team for which Las Vegas has set a lower over/under win total than New York’s 5.5 is Cleveland.
Yup, expectations are near rock bottom. All this happy talk about culture change can easily turn ugly if the team continues to lose. Is it possible for the Jets to evolve into a 2025 surprise team? Of course, this is the NFL, where parity is supposed to reign. Jets fans, though, should be immune by now from latching on to any sort of positive beliefs.
And nothing the Jets do prior to the September 7 kickoff against Pittsburgh is going to change the narrative. That’s unfortunate, because how can a fan base foster hope when so much with regard to a team’s success is a mystery?
For instance:
1) QB negative plays
Glenn has given the ball that once belonged to Rodgers, a certain future Hall of Famer, to free agent acquisition Justin Fields. It was the proper organizational decision, even if Fields’ first four seasons have been pocked by inconsistencies.
In particular, Fields has been a negative play magnet. With Pittsburgh last season, he was tasked with being a game manager to cut down on his turnover rate. That he didn’t cause more than four (1 pick and three lost fumbles) during his six starts before the Steelers pulled the plug was due more to blind luck than positional growth. Pittsburgh recovered three other Fields fumbles and ProFootballFocus.com counted three turnover worthy throws in his last three starts.
Turnovers are obvious drive killers, but taking sacks is an underreported sin. Teams on average score on about 35% of possessions. That number drops to the low 20s when a sack occurs, per ESPN. Fields, despite his awesome athleticism, simply gets caught too often. Only five other QBs were dropped more than the 16 times Fields was sacked over the first six games last season.
Offseason reports of Fields in a red, don’t-touch-me jersey aren’t going to tell us much about his improvements in ball security or sack avoidance measures.
2) Offensive line chemistry
The reports from the last practice that allowed media observations had Fields running for his life during most of the 11-on-11 periods, with edge rusher Will McDonald IV wreaking the most havoc.
No worries—yet. Though useful to improve fundamental techniques, practices without pads are tough on offensive linemen.
Still, this notion that the Jets’ line will suddenly vault into the league’s elite this season hasn’t been battled tested either. While it’s good news that all five projected starters, including left tackle Olu Fashanu, the team’s 2024 first round pick whose rookie season ended on injured reserve, are out on the field, it might take some time for the unit to perform at high levels.
In addition to Glenn, the team has a new offensive coordinator (Tanner Engstrand) and offensive line coach (Steve Heiden). Fashanu, 22, and 2025 first round pick Armand Membou, 21, form perhaps the youngest starting bookend pairing in the league. Center Joe Tippmann, 24, is entering his third NFL season.
I can’t remember the last time the Jets had a dominant offensive line. You’d probably have to go back to the Nick Mangold/D’Brickashaw Ferguson heyday of around 2010. Even during New York’s last winning season in 2015, PFF ranked the blocking as average to below average.
Maybe this group will one day reach that stratum. We just can’t know the extent of the growing pains at this time.
3) Who’ll stop the run?
With NFL injuries so pervasive, it’s no wonder that teams have been cutting back on live practices. The downside is the severe decrease in the number of reps where defenders can hone their tackling.
And few teams need more improvement in wrapping up ballcarriers than New York, which registered the fifth-most missed tackles last season, according to pro-football-reference.com. Some of that was obviously on pass plays, but the deterioration in the Jets’ run defense set the tone for the unit’s disappointment last season. Per rbsdm.com, the Jets ranked 22nd in the league in expected points added per play on opponents’ runs and allowed a 27th-ranked 44.1% success rate.
Linebacker Jamien Sherwood piled up the third-most tackles in the league last season, but that’s not always a good thing. Tackles four yards or more downfield can stress the defense. Unfortunately, the Jets got relatively few stops from their linemen’s penetration, even with former HCs Robert Saleh and Jeff Ulbrich encouraging them to get upfield. The team’s leader in PFF’s run stop percentage among their linemen last season (minimum 140 run defense snaps)? That would be undrafted rookie Leonard Taylor, who placed 84th out of the league’s 204 qualifying linemen. Yup, Quinnen Williams, a 2022 first team All-Pro, saw his run stop percentage nearly halved thanks to all the double and triple teams he was seeing.
I’ve written plenty about how prior General Manager Joe Douglas destroyed the team’s defensive line out of hubris last offseason, but that’s behind us. The focus now becomes on how the organization plans to address this weakness.
On paper, it appears they didn’t. New GM Darren Mougey signed a host of defensive tackles for minimum money, with former Chief Derrick Nnadi being the most notable. Nnadi hasn’t earned a decent PFF run defense grade since 2020.
Maybe the return of Jermaine Johnson, who was an excellent edge setter two years ago before suffering an Achilles tear in Week 2 last season, can stimulate a production rise. Like with the other areas above, we’ll have to wait three-plus months and see.