The Jets’ defense has had its issues in 2026, to say the least. However, there’s at least one area where they have improved. The defense as a whole has been a lot more opportunistic this year in terms of forcing fumbles.
Led by David Bailey’s five, they have forced a total of 13 fumbles. That’s already four more than the total for all of last season.
New York’s fumble luck has been a lot better too, as they’ve recovered 50 percent of all fumbles. This is much higher than their 2025 percentage, which
was the second-worst in the league at 35 percent (and was actually on target to break the all-time record until they had a few over the last few weeks of the season).
Had they been closer to 50 percent last year, or 2023 when they were dead last in fumble recovery percentage, or 2022 when they were 30th, those seasons could arguably have played out very differently.
2023 in particular was particularly galling, as the Jets started 7-4 and then lost their last six as the turnovers dried up. They almost tied the all-time NFL record for the fewest defensive fumble recoveries until Carl Lawson ended a nine-game drought by recovering one with two games remaining. In the end, they only managed to recover 21 percent of fumbles by opposing offenses.
It’s often been debated how much of fumble recovery percentages are dictated by talent and how much is based on luck, with most analytical studies concluding it’s mostly luck. However, if you have a team that is hungry and hustles to the ball, has players who are particularly adept at possessing loose balls or are creating the kinds of fumbles which are more likely to be recovered by the defense, this obviously has an effect on some level.
Regardless, at least the Jets have seemingly started to regress to the mean in this area. So the next question becomes when will they start to do anything impactful with these recoveries?
This Thursday marked the 14th anniversary of the last time a Jets defensive player recovered a ball off the turf and returned it for a touchdown. That was Muhammad Wilkerson, on a play where Mike DeVito had forced the ball loose on a sack of Russell Wilson.
That’s a pretty remarkable statistic. Although there have only been six fumble returns for touchdowns in the first nine weeks of this NFL season, the Jets averaged over eight fumble returns per decade in the 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s. Doesn’t it feel like they’re long overdue?
Wilkerson’s touchdown was not actually the last defensive fumble return for a touchdown by the Jets. Jamal Adams officially owns that distinction, on a memorable play where he ripped the ball out of Daniel Jones’ hands and ran it in. He therefore didn’t recover it off the ground, so it wasn’t a conventional scoop and score.
Even this was a far-too-long seven years ago.
Since 2012, the Jets have also scored three other touchdowns on fumbles but two (Matt Slauson and Charone Peake) were on offense, and the other was a muffed punt recovered in the end zone by Art Maulet. Again, none of these was in the past seven years.
The Jets’ last defensive touchdown was a pick-six by Jermaine Johnson and that one dates back to 2023.
It feels like a scoop and score is exactly the kind of momentum-shifting play that has been lacking ever since Aaron Glenn took over as head coach. It’s the kind of thing that could give them a chance to upset a favored opponent, which is something Glenn’s team probably needs to do a couple of times between now and the end of the season if he wants to mount a strong enough case to return for a third year.
With Bailey in particular doing a good job of creating these opportunities, perhaps this could be something that happens sooner rather than later.
Now we’ve written about this, perhaps this will manifest a Jets fumble return for a touchdown in an upcoming game. Otherwise, we’ll be writing about how long it was since Wilkerson’s touchdown again in a few seasons…
