No Need To Overreact To Jets Week 1 Loss—But Previous Concerns Certainly Weren’t Allayed
Thanks to its short season relative to other pro sports, the NFL has been able to continue to perpetuate to the public the notion of elevated importance to each week’s contests. The league further manufactured major event status on its 2024 opening week slate by configuring high-interest matchups such as Thursday’s Chiefs/Ravens AFC Championship replay and Sunday night’s Rams/Lions quarterback revenge tilt.
For Monday night, the NFL had Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers not only making his return to the field after last season’s Week 1 disaster that saw him rupture his Achilles on the fourth snap, but it also had him returning to his home San Francisco area.
Must-see TV, right?
The reality, however, is that NFL seasons are no longer the sprints they used to be. The increase to a 17-game season (which I’d bet will be increased again within the next few years) diminishes the impact of a single result. Last week, I had to chide my friend Mike, an avid Steelers fan, when he called his club’s game on Sunday at Atlanta “a must win.”
Really? The first game of the year on the road against a non-conference opponent? If the Steelers had lost, would it have doomed their entire season? Maybe if it was Week 13 and Pittsburgh was 6-6 and fighting for a playoff seed, then you could think differently. Otherwise, the Steelers’ 18-10 victory was just one of 17.
So I’m not going to change the rules by overreacting because the Jets were utterly dominated by the defending NFC champion 49ers on both sides of the ball in their 32-19 defeat on Monday.
However, nothing went down in this game that disproved my previous reservations about Gang Green’s prospects for this season. Somehow, the Jets have been hyped to boast a “championship roster” that only needed better quarterback play in order to join the legitimate title contenders.
I think many more so-called experts will now concur that perhaps that’s a fallacy. One only needed to watch how other top teams, including the Niners, conducted business in Week 1 to conclude that New York is far below that upper level in both talent and efficiency. Just in the AFC, I can count at least five such teams off the top of my head with equal or superior personnel, and that’s before we get into coaching differences.
Take the Jets’ vaunted defense, which I warned was due for a comedown given the turnover in the front four. It forced one punt and zero turnovers all evening, allowing San Francisco to score on eight straight possessions. Per ESPN’s Rich Cimini, that hadn’t happened to the Jets in the 45 years Elias Sports kept track of such data.
Despite receiving the news 90 minutes prior to game time that the NFL’s top running back Christian McCaffrey would be inactive due to a sore calf, New York was gashed for 180 yards on 38 rush attempts. 147 of them were earned by McCaffrey understudy Jordan Mason, who did nothing exceptional except hit the holes and keep his feet moving—per Cimini, 94 of Mason’s yards came before any contact from a Jets defender.
The Jets defensive coaching staff was continually outmaneuvered by 49ers Head Coach Kyle Shanahan. I saw the momentum shift after New York took a 7-3 lead in the first quarter. To that point, San Francisco had run six plays for a total of 11 yards. But then Head Coach Robert Saleh and Defensive Coordinator Jeff Ulbrich began implementing their defensive line rotation. As soon as interior linemen Quinnen Williams and Javon Kinlaw came out for aging Solomon Thomas and practice squad member Jalyn Holmes, that’s when the Niners started running the ball down the Jets’ throats.
Thereafter, Shanahan was always one step ahead of the Jets’ coaches. When All-Pro cornerback Sauce Gardner took plays off in the second quarter (he said afterwards he was recovering from getting the wind knocked out of him on a tackle), 49ers QB Brock Purdy took to the air, going 6-for-6 for 10.7 yards per attempt. When Shanahan saw that no one covered fullback Kyle Juszczyk on a particular pass play in the first half, he designed something similar on the opposite side that led to a 34-yard gain on the Niners opening possession of the third quarter. It set up a five-yard Mason touchdown run for a 23-7 lead.
I’m sure there will be plenty of hot takes that this was all because the Jets have been playing hardball with edge rusher Haason Reddick, who has refused to report and honor his nearly $15 million contract for this season. While it’s true that Gang Green’s pass rush was invisible, much of it had to do with the aforementioned inability to stop the run and Purdy’s quick release, neither of which would Reddick have majorly disrupted.
As opposed to being whipped all over the field like the defense, the Jets’ offensive issues were more a function of traceable errors—a blatant Allen Lazard third-down drop, a Breece Hall fumble, whiffed blocks, inaccurate Rodgers throws, etc. Down two scores, they turned over a key fourth quarter possession on downs at midfield after gaining nine yards on first down. Wide receiver Garrett Wilson should have done a better job getting a second foot down in bounds to move the chains, and then Hall was stuffed and Rodgers misfired on a fourth-down throw to Wilson.
It’s why New York’s offense was so hit-and-miss—three touchdown drives but four other three-and-outs. Maybe some of those gaffes can be cut back as the group, which played zero preseason snaps, works out the kinks.
They’ll have a short week to start working on it, as the Jets head to Tennessee for Sunday’s contest. The Titans, with erratic second-year QB Will Levis, just lost to a lowly Bears squad that generated a mere 148 yards of total offense.
OK, maybe that’s a “must win” for the Jets.