Why the Jets’ season has cratered since their big Eagles upset،
FLORHAM PARK, NJ – As he left the field, an excited Robert Saleh jumped into the arms of general manager Joe Douglas. A former offensive lineman, the burly general manager lifted the coach a few feet off the ground and held him there for a few seconds. It was quite a moment for the leaders of the New York Jets.
It was a high point for the Saleh-Douglas regime. It was October 15, and the Jets – without injured star quarterback Aaron Rodgers (torn left Achilles) or their starting cornerbacks – had just upset the previously undefeated Philadelphia Eagles, 20-14, at MetLife Stadium . The Jets were 3-3, looking like a team that had figured out how to win without its future Hall of Fame quarterback.
“Yeah, man, it definitely looked like we were going somewhere,” cornerback DJ Reed said, looking back.
They were going somewhere, okay. They simply never imagined it would be the same place it was last season — an offensively challenged team, lost in the quarterback abyss and struggling with the perception of dysfunction. They finished 2022 on a six-game losing streak, and now own a five-game losing streak.
This Philly Special took place only 53 days ago. It's amazing how quickly a season can be destroyed. The losing streak didn't start immediately after that – they had a bye week, followed by a 13-10 overtime win over the New York Giants – but the paint started to peel and the Drywall started falling off the walls during that Giants game. . The Jets held them to minus-9 net passing yards and still needed a miracle at the end of regulation to get by.
Since then, they are 0-5 with a minus-77 point differential, tied with the Washington Commanders for worst in the league over that span. The Jets only scored two – two! – offensive touchdowns during the losing streak, treating the end zone as if it were a roped off area located in a national historic landmark.
“It’s like a bad dream,” tight end Tyler Conklin said of the five-game slide and offensive struggles.
The ineptitude has bred controversy, with rumors swirling around quarterback Zach Wilson and his reluctance to return to the fold – bad optics for all parties. Rodgers fueled the storm during his Tuesday appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show.” In defending Wilson, Rodgers blasted the organization for a pattern of “sissy” leaks to the media.
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Aaron Rodgers defends Zach Wilson against media leaks
Aaron Rogers joins Pat McAfee in expressing his displeasure with Jets source leaking information about Zach Wilson.
On Wednesday, Wilson was once again named the starting quarterback.
How did the Jets go from a promising 3-3 to a seemingly hopeless 4-8?
“We've seen what we can look like when we click, when we play good ball, when we play with field position, when the defense gets turnovers, when the offense capitalizes, when special teams makes plays ” linebacker CJ Mosley said. “And we’ve seen the worst of that.”
Musical Quarterbacks: They went from Rodgers to Wilson to Tim Boyle to Wilson in the starting role, with a relief appearance from Trevor Siemian sandwiched in between. Only one change was dictated by injury: Rodgers in week one. The rest of the movements were performance related.
Quarterback instability is the quickest path to a team's demise.
The truth is that the Jets have adapted so much to Rodgers (the system, offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, and even acquired a handful of former teammates such as receivers Allen Lazard and Randall Cobb) that the infrastructure has collapsed when he fell.
“You build a one-person system, you try to make changes, and you have players coming in and out of the lineup because of injuries,” Saleh said. “It's hard.”
Football is the ultimate team sport and building a program around a single player defies that principle. It may work in rare cases, but the Jets simply weren't equipped to absorb the hit.
They masked the problem for six games, using an opportunistic defense to eke out wins against the Denver Broncos and Eagles, but Wilson's flaws were eventually exposed and the offense fell into a deep freeze. We're talking Antarctica – just three touchdowns on their last 74 possessions over the last six games.
“It’s been pretty bad, huh?” Conklin said. “Pretty bad. Pretty stagnant.”
Since the Eagles game, the Jets are 31st in Total QBR (18.4) and tied for last in touchdown passes (three).
Disappearance of Breece Hall: The Jets hoped a healthy Hall in the backfield would keep the offense afloat after Rodgers' injury, helping them avoid a repeat of last season's collapse — which, by the way, coincided with Hall's torn ACL in his left knee. This time, his big play prowess would force defenses to overplay the run, creating easier reads and better matchups for Wilson in the passing game.
Or so they thought.
Hall is off to a fantastic start, throwing for 387 yards in the first five games, but has just 198 in the last seven. He scored the go-ahead touchdown against the Eagles with less than two minutes remaining, and he completed a checkdown pass for a 50-yard score the next play — and he didn't reach the end zone Since.
What happened? Is it worn out? There's no doubt that inconsistent blocking has contributed to his decline as the Jets rank 29th in block win rate (68.8%). But Hall accepted some blame, saying he made unusual mistakes because he was pressuring. Saleh challenged him, telling him he wanted Hall to be more physical and that he was looking for the “grubby yards.”
The coaches appreciated Hall's aggressiveness in last week's loss to the Atlanta Falcons, but it didn't show up on the stat sheet: 16 yards on 13 carries.
Constantly evolving offensive line: The Jets started 12 different linemen and nine different offensive line combinations, creating a constant flow in the position group that needs the most continuity. Only one player has been in the same place since the start of the season: left back Laken Tomlinson.
They could do a parody of the old Abbott & Costello “Who's on First?” routine: Who is on the right guard? For the record, six different players started there.
Almost every team has line issues. Some have plug-and-play replacements. Others, like the Jets, can't keep up with the number of injuries. The biggest loss was guard/tackle Alijah Vera-Tucker, who tore his Achilles tendon against the Broncos. An underrated loss was center Connor McGovern, who injured his knee in the Giants game. His cerebral approach was an asset. Rookie Joe Tippmann looks promising, but he doesn't have McGovern's feel yet.
The Jets allow one sack per 10 dropbacks, the second-highest rate in the league.
Not maximizing a supreme talent: Garrett Wilson, the 2022 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year, must feel helpless sometimes. He's the seventh most targeted receiver (120), but his reception rate (55.8%) is just 68th out of 78 qualified receivers.
Translation: They're trying to get the ball to their No. 1 playmaker, but they can't do it consistently due to quarterback deficiencies.
In last week's loss, Wilson was open down the field a few times, but he didn't get the ball because Boyle threw it to someone else. Boyle was eliminated on Tuesday. These were not isolated cases. Wilson has the fifth-highest “open” rating among all pass catchers, according to ESPN Analytics, which uses player tracking data and NFL Next Gen stats to evaluate players.
Somehow, Wilson managed to bottle up his frustration.
“My legacy is at stake,” he said. “My family's legacy is on the line every time I go on the field — every rep, that's how I see it.”
Wilson has only one touchdown in the last 10 games, and it was a useless score in Week 12.
A look to the future: The Jets — with less than a 0.01 percent chance of making the playoffs, according to ESPN Analytics — are on pace to miss the playoffs for the 13th straight year. This is the longest active drought in the NFL. The only thing they can salvage is respectability, but that won't be easy with a historically bad offense. Their remaining schedule is ranked 21st in difficulty, so maybe they can steal a few wins while trying to combat the gloom and doom.
“You lose one game in this league and it pretty sucks, so to lose five in a row or whatever, I mean, you can only imagine how shitty that seems,” Conklin said.
The Jets have a lame quarterback — Wilson will likely play elsewhere in 2024 — and an offense that needs improvement at receiver and line. Soon, the focus could shift to job security for the general manager and coach.
The Douglas-Saleh partnership produced a 15-31 record, although the prospect of a healthy Rodgers in 2024 certainly increases the odds of an intact return for the regime. Rodgers, who wields considerable influence, has publicly supported the current leadership.
Everything seemed so promising on October 15, when Saleh jumped into Douglas's arms and they celebrated a victory that seems even more improbable nearly two months later.
