When Jets general manager Joe Douglas spoke to the media on Thursday, Haason Reddick’s holdout was the main topic of discussion, but Douglas said something important during his 19-minute press conference.
“We are past the point of growth,” Douglas said of the 2024 Jets. “I feel like this is a team that is ready to win.”
That may not seem like a big deal, but for a long time the Jets have been afraid to actually talk about winning. There has been plenty of talk about improvement and growth entering seasons in recent years and not much about actually winning.
But these Jets are entering the 2024 season with confidence and expectations, two things that have been in short supply over the last decade. If you talk to players, they’ll tell you they think this is the best team they’ve ever been on. Both privately and publicly, there has been a lot of confidence expressed in this team. You have to go back over a decade to find a Jets roster that compares to this one.
So, how should the 2024 Jets define success? Making the playoffs feels like the floor for expectations. Is it enough to end the 13-year playoff drought? Do the Jets have to win a playoff game? Do they have to make the Super Bowl? Win the Super Bowl?
Everyone around the Jets knows what’s riding on this season. Douglas and coach Robert Saleh likely will be fired if things don’t go well. If the Aaron Rodgers experiment bombs, Rodgers will either be retired in 2025 or chasing a title somewhere else.
While that part is easy to define, what qualifies as a successful season is not as easy.
To me, making the playoffs will be a successful year for the Jets. I don’t care what it looks like. If they are 10-7 and win in the last week to get in, that’s fine. If they get bounced in the first round, again I think that is a positive step for a franchise that has had more coaching searches in January than playoff games in recent years.
I also think that might be the first hurdle to clear on the way to bigger things in 2025. It is not easy to go from also-ran to the Super Bowl in one year. If you look at the last 10 Super Bowls and the 20 teams that played in them, only five teams went from missing the playoffs to appearing in the Super Bowl the following season and only two of those teams actually lifted the Lombardi Trophy.
The most hopeful comparison for the Jets is probably the 2020 Buccaneers, who went from 7-9 in 2019 to winning it all the following year, when Tom Brady changed the equation for them. Even though Rodgers has technically been a Jet for 16 months, it feels like he is a new addition after missing all but four snaps last year.
Rodgers has looked spectacular during training camp. That is not a guarantee he will put together a huge season, but it does provide reason to hope if you are the Jets.
An argument can be made that even if the Jets make the playoffs and lose there, this season is a failure. Rodgers turns 41 years old in December. Father Time is going to catch up to him at some point. Key players Tyron Smith, Morgan Moses, Mike Williams, D.J. Reed, Tyler Conklin and Michael Carter II are all in the final year of their contracts.
I get that point of view, but I think if the Jets put together a successful season, owner Woody Johnson will give Douglas the green light to bring many of those players back and spend money to improve the roster in 2025.
When trying to evaluate what success looks like this year, one variable we don’t know is how the season will unfold. How a season is viewed is often not defined until how it ends. A late-season collapse tends to make it feel like a failure, even if you make the playoffs. Just ask the 2023 Eagles. If a team goes on a winning streak in December to make the playoffs, it often feels like something to build on even if it loses in the postseason. If these Jets start off 5-5 and then win six of their final seven games, there will be a lot of talk about building something for 2025 even if they get bounced in the divisional round.
We won’t know exactly what success looks like for the 2024 Jets until we see how the season plays out. Expectations have finally arrived at One Jets Drive. Now, we’ll see if they can live up to them.
