It’s an honor to be featured on Gang Green Nation, and I can’t wait to talk Jets football with you all season! In a world full of emotional recollections and irrational takes, I aim to be the purveyor of truth for this passionate fan base. While I wholeheartedly root for the team day in and day out and yearn for the day they can reward me as my Knicks have, my pieces are grounded in logic, reason, and provable data.
I’m going to use those three principles to assess the three things I discuss in this
article about the Jets/Titans game. Of course, there are plenty of obvious storylines here (revenge game, anyone!?), but two things I will guarantee in my weekly previews are that I will never just echo the mainstream narrative, and you will always learn at least one new stat you’ve never seen before.
The mainstream narrative here is revenge, and that’s fair. This is more than Robert Saleh looking to spite the owner who fired him mid-season; it is more than Aaron Glenn trying to prove Woody was right to choose him instead of sticking with Saleh. A whopping 20.7% of the total players rostered in this game are preparing to face either their old team or old coach this Sunday. The revenge angle will be heavily prevalent throughout the game, but let’s look at things that are more easily measured than vengeance:
Geno Smith Under Pressure
A lot of the eyes on Geno will be looking to answer the question, “Is this Seahawks Geno or Raiders Geno?” I regret to inform you that they’re the same person. He can put up yards with high usage, and he throws picks with his fearless nature – these things have rung true all four years as a starter in his 30s.
Another constant from that entire four-year span is how badly he folds under pressure. Last year in particular, he had the single worst drop in PFF grade when pressured vs clean pocket in the entire NFL. His 79.9 grade dropped all the way down to 28.8 for the 212 dropbacks in which he was pressured. There were several QBs who had their grades drop 40+ when pressured, but Geno was the lone QB in the NFL to drop 50+. Six of his league-leading 17 interceptions came from plays where he was under pressure.
The Jets offensive line is coming off a year where they were the only team in the NFL to have exactly one combination of linemen start for all 17 games. They replaced John Simpson with Dylan Parham, extended Joe Tippmann, and seem poised to take another step together as one of football’s younger ascending units.
Will this line, Frank Reich’s game-planning, and Geno’s pre-play diagnoses abolish all instances of pressure? Statistics (and common sense) say probably not, as Saleh has consistently been one of the best minds in the sport at this exact skill. In 2023, Saleh’s Jets led the league in Sack %, and they were 2nd in the league five weeks into 2024 before he was shown the door (they fell outside of the top 5 under Jeff Ulbrich’s watch).
Armed with equally motivated ex-Jets Jermaine Johnson II, John Franklin-Myers, and the established Titans All-Pro DT Jeffery Simmons, I’d imagine he’s looking to continue his efficiency in this stat. Perhaps the greatest aspect of Saleh’s defensive scheme is the ability to create pressure without blitzing. They rush with four, have seven in coverage, and make it that much more difficult for opposing QBs to make good decisions.
Geno has been struggling so much with pressure vs. teams that actually blitz, meaning there are five or six players in coverage and he’s making the wrong decision. How much will that be amplified if he’s under pressure and there are seven players in coverage?
I’m extremely curious to see how much pressure Saleh’s Titans can generate, and even more curious to see how Geno and the Jets respond. Will there be more calamity? Has Frank schemed up some outlet/checkdown options? Can Geno play with poise and make smart decisions? I have my popcorn ready!
All Stuffed Up?
I don’t especially enjoy Kool-Aid, so I don’t often drink it, but I might be in on the Kool-Aid for T’Vondre Sweat. There just aren’t too many guys his size that move that quickly, and I love the sneak peek we got vs. the Giants in preseason a couple of weeks ago.
One of the clearest issues for the Jets last year was the run defense – the Jets allowed the 4th most rushing yards per game on the 10th most yards per carry, and after Quinnen Williams was traded, there was no answer for the opposing running backs. This season, Darren Mougey signed David Onyemata, secured a trade for T’Vondre Sweat, and brought in a desperately needed veteran presence in the linebacker room in Demario Davis.
I cannot overstate how impressive it is that 15-year veteran Demario Davis is coming off a season in which he had his career-high in tackles (143). He also had a career-high 16 run stuffs and 6 tackles for loss. The combination of his physical skill set with his football intellect will be perfect for Jamien Sherwood, who was still a tackling machine last year (154) but looked lost at times.
With Cam Ward a sophomore QB learning a new system and young, developing weapons, we can say with absolute certainty that Titans OC Brian Daboll will look to run the football. Between Tony Pollard, Tyjae Spears, and Nicholas Singleton, they feel good about their options in the room. Pollard is coming off a 1,082-yard campaign with five touchdowns and 4.5 yards per carry, which are all better than Breece Hall’s 2025 numbers. There’s a lot of attention on a “Cam vs Geno” discussion, but I truly believe that in these first two points, we have established the actual two keys of the game. The Jets will need Geno to survive the inevitable pressure when it comes, and the Titans will need to somehow get Tony Pollard and Tyjae Spears consistently running past their former teammate T’Vondre Sweat.
The Dark Cloud
If you’re a Jets fan, you know about the dubious interception stat that is clouding the Aaron Glenn Jets era. The three-time Pro Bowl cornerback-turned-defensive coordinator-turned-head coach spearheaded the first team in NFL history to record zero interceptions in a full season. Fun fact: seasons used to be 16 games long; they were previously 14 games long, and teams still managed to grab an interception during the season. 17 games, and Aaron Glenn’s team was completely empty-handed.
Until they get one, this dark cloud will loom over them. Glenn could fire all the coaches he wants, make all the excuses he needs to feel better, but nothing can erase this embarrassing 2025 record, and until they get one in 2026, the monkey will still be on their back.
The good news is that this regime knows this! They signed Nahshon Wright, who tied for second last year in most interceptions (5), Dane Belton, who had a pick last year (and is a tackling machine), drafted star cornerback D’Angelo Ponds, and traded for All-Pro Safety Minkah Fitzpatrick. It should be inarguable that the personnel in the secondary is much more equipped to catch interceptions than last year’s bunch.
It should also be noted that the earlier point about Geno Smith throwing picks in duress works for lots of other teams as well. If the Jets can generate pressure much more efficiently than they did last year, then perhaps a young QB (say, like Cam Ward) would panic under pressure and throw it directly to the Jets’ secondary. They made a huge upgrade there by drafting David Bailey second overall and signing Joseph Ossai and Kingsley Enagbare.
Ossai’s not healthy, so we can omit him for this Sunday preview, but let’s see what the second overall pick can do in his NFL debut. With Will McDonald IV on the other side, there should be opportunity to get after the quarterback and force mistakes, but I admittedly said the same thing last year with Jermaine Johnson and Will McDonald on the team. Maybe Glenn’s superpower can be the difference this pass rush needs, and we see the drought end early this Sunday. Let’s go Jets
