FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – The Jets dropped their fifth game in a row on Sunday, this one a stunning 25-22 loss to the lowly Patriots. Here are some thoughts and observations from the game:
1. I thought the Aaron Rodgers trade was a good one in April 2023. The Jets had to make a move because Zach Wilson was bust. It was a gamble to bring in a player about to turn 40, but it felt like it could work.
It has not.
Rodgers is now eight games into his second season with the Jets and his tenure has been a total disaster. No one can blame him for the injury in his first season but his play in the second season has not been good. There have been flashes of the old Rodgers, but he has mostly looked just like an old Rodgers.
The Jets were always taking a risk with an older quarterback. Tom Brady has made people forget that, but he was an alien. Most quarterbacks fall off before they hit 40 years old or right after. Brady was the only one who was able to have success at such an advanced age. Peyton Manning’s last season was not a good one for him but the Broncos defense carried them to a Super Bowl.
There is a saying about quarterbacks that someone told me a long time ago and it sticks with me. Good quarterbacks hide your team’s warts and bad quarterbacks expose them.
When Rodgers was at his best in Green Bay all those years, it didn’t matter if the defense was not terrific or if he did not have the best supporting cast around him. Rodgers was so good, he hid the warts. Rodgers is now on the other side. He is exposing the Jets’ warts. The running game stinks. The offensive line is struggling and we overrated the weapons and the defense.
There is nothing the 2024 Jets can do now. They have to ride this out with Rodgers. There may come a point where he needs to sit down because of his injuries but you have no one waiting in the wings to take over as your quarterback of the future. Tyrod Taylor is 35 years old. Jordan Travis is on the non-football injury list and is not playing this season. Rodgers is going down with the ship.
2. The trade deadline is in a week on Nov. 5. The Jets need to have some difficult conversations after they get through Thursday’s game against the Texans. Is it time to start selling off players to get draft picks?
This is a really weird situation because selling off pieces at the deadline is usually something reserved for rebuilding teams. The Jets are a win-now team that can’t win.
In Joe Douglas’ early years as GM, they moved pieces at the deadline, most notably Leonard Williams. But that was with the idea that the Jets were at least a year or two away from being a contender and needed draft picks. The Jets traded for Davante Adams two weeks ago, a sign they were going for it this year.
Douglas does not have a contract beyond this year and with the way this season is going, it feels like there is no shot he will be back in 2025. He has felt like a lame duck since Woody Johnson fired Robert Saleh earlier this month. Does Douglas care about getting draft picks for his successor? Does Johnson order him to or is he still delusional about how great this roster is?
I could see D.J. Reed, Mike Williams, Morgan Moses and Tyler Conklin having some trade value and they are all in the final year of their contracts. Would any of the teams who wanted Adams a few weeks ago still be interested? It would be crazy to see a player traded twice in one month, but this is a crazy season.
Trading away veterans is waving the white flag. If there is even a shred of fight left in the veteran Jets, you will take it from them. That is the flip side to trading off players. But these Jets have shown little fight already, so it may be time to turn the page to 2025.
3. The Jets defense is fourth in the NFL in yards per game allowed. That shows you how meaningless stats can be.
This defense again could not make the big stop when the Jets needed it to in the fourth quarter. They rolled over to Jacoby Brissett and the Patriots, a terrible offense.
I thought the Jets defense would take a step back this year, but I did not expect it to be this dramatic. Their stars are not playing well. Sauce Gardner is not having a good season. Quinnen Williams played well Sunday but has not been his disruptive self for most of the year. C.J. Mosley has been injured. Quincy Williams is not playing as well as he did last year.
The only Jets defender exceeding expectations is Will McDonald, who has eight sacks.
The other puzzling aspect of this defense is its inability to force turnovers. The Jets have six takeaways this season and only two interceptions. Both interceptions were by backup Brandin Echols. They never come up with an interception in those key fourth-quarter situations.
The defense has undoubtedly taken a step back since Saleh was fired. It may be because Saleh had more to do with the defense than we thought. It may be because Jeff Ulbrich is overburdened with both head coaching and defensive coordinator duties.
Ulbrich needs to strongly consider giving up defensive play-calling to an assistant and see if that works. Right now, what the Jets are doing is not working.
4. Jets fans know how this is going to go. The team has been bad enough that you are starting to dream of a top-five draft pick and potentially picking a franchise quarterback. But you know the Jets are going to win just enough to cost you the top draft pick but not enough to make the playoffs. We’ve seen this movie before.
The Jets’ schedule remains incredibly weak. The Texans and Bills are the only teams with winning records remaining on the schedule. I get that the feeling on Monday morning is the Jets would struggle to beat Bergen Catholic, but the reality is they will win some games in the final two months. A 6-11 or 7-10 record should be just enough to cost them a shot at a quarterback and the vicious cycle goes on and on.
Revealing stat
This is from Football Perspective – the Jets scored 20 or more points, committed no turnovers and held the Patriots under 250 yards. From 1940 until Sunday, teams were 756-0 when they hit those three metrics. The Jets snapped that streak.
Surprising snap count
Xavier Gipson was down to six offensive snaps. He did score a touchdown. I was surprised his count was this low with Allen Lazard out of the lineup. But Mike Williams got more work with 36 snaps. I think Gipson can bring a speed dimension the other receivers can’t. The Jets need to figure out how to use it.
Game ball
There are not many candidates in this game but I’ll go with Quinnen Williams. He had 1 ½ sacks and looked more like himself in this game than he has recently. He was dominant at times.
