The picture below is known as the rabbit-duck illusion. Depending on your perception, you might see a rabbit or a duck.
The illusion first appeared in a German magazine in the 1890s, and it has been dissected by scholars in numerous academic fields since.
Fans of the television series How I Met Your Mother may recognize the illusion as it played a central role in an episode that aired in 2010.
This speaks to something basic. Our perceptions of a person, event, or place can change even if little has
changed on the surface about that entity.
It’s tough to believe, but there was a brief window in 2024 when the Aaron Rodgers-Robert Saleh Jets seemed to be right on track. The team lost its opener in San Francisco to the 49ers, a game few expected them to win. The Jets followed that loss up to back-to-back wins against the Titans and the Patriots.
The team was 2-1 heading into Week 4. Of course that year nobody thought Tennessee or New England would be very good, but the Jets were doing what good teams did. They took care of business against bad opponents.
Then came Week 4. The Jets lost to a Denver Broncos team they were supposed to beat. The next week they lost in London to the Vikings, and their head coach was fired. Next up was a loss to the Buffalo Bills. The team made a desperation trade for Davante Adams, but that didn’t help the Jets avoid a loss to the Steelers and then the next week that same Patriots team.
After the third week of that season, it was perfectly reasonable to look at the Jets’ 2-1 record and feel like they took care of business against bad teams. A few weeks later, those games looked different. The Titans were on their way to earning the number one overall pick, but they had outgained the Jets in Week 2. The Jets needed a late goal line stand to secure a win against a dreadful team. The Week 3 win against the Patriots was more decisive, but New England was indeed awful in 2024. Still they were able to avenge their loss to the Jets a few weeks later.
It quickly had become clear that the 2024 Jets were also a very bad team. They would win only three more games the rest of the way, one of which was against a Jaguars team that also earned a top five pick. Another was against a Dolphins team in Week 18 playing its backup quarterback.
I’m not sure which one of duck or rabbit represents a good team on its way and which represents a really bad team that had a soft early season schedule, but it’s fair to say perceptions changed about that Jets team.
An NFL season is a fragile thing. A team can seem to be on a good trajectory and then completely fall off and have a disastrous season.
The 2026 Jets weren’t playing spectacular football heading into Week 4, but they more or less had looked like a professional team, which was something to be appreciated. The record might have only been 1-2, but this team looked a cut above your recent Jets club. They were coming off a Week 3 game where they stood toe to toe with a quality Lions team.
Up against a backup quarterback in Chicago, I don’t think a win was an unreasonable ask. At the very least, the Jets should continue to look professional.
Instead fans were treated to a catastrophic loss. The Jets were horrible in all phases of the game.
In recent years this team has had an uncanny way of becoming a footnote like this.
This was the kind of game that makes you question whether the progress of the first four weeks was actually progress.
Maybe that win over the Tennessee Titans that seemed promising in the moment was just this team’s version of the Week 3 2024 game against New England, catching a horrific opponent at the perfect moment on the schedule.
Blowing a 10 point lead to Green Bay in the fourth quarter in a game they otherwise dominated perhaps could be excused since the Jets did play at a high level.
Losing a back and forth road game to the Lions because Detroit made one more play? It happens.
But when you combine these results with that ghastly effort in Chicago, you get a 1-3 record. You could be excused for wondering how real the progress of the first three weeks really was.
When I say progress, I’m not talking about merely being better than the Brady Cook Jets of the final five games from 2025. That legitimately might have been the worst five game stretch of football a team has played in NFL history. The Jets could have done literally anything this offseason and been improved from that.
The question is whether the Jets are on track to become a genuinely good team within the next year or two. You could be forgiven if your answer today is different from what it would have been yesterday.
One critical area where fan perceptions might change is on the team’s head coach. It isn’t exactly a secret that Aaron Glenn has struggled in his year and change in charge of the Jets. His 4-17 record is a clear enough indicator of that.
Of course Glenn inherited a true nightmare situation, one few coaches could have navigated successfully to this point.
There’s nothing wrong with trying to talk yourself into a head coach. Glenn was a legendary player for this franchise. Hoping for the best for him is the right thing to do.
So we can point out the horrendous condition the team was in when he took the job. We can talk about focusing on the long-term. We can try to absolve Glenn of the blame.
But when you face the Bears, you face Ben Johnson. There is a clear display of what a genuinely good head coach is capable of doing. Johnson, of course, took over a much better situation in Chicago. Still, it isn’t all about his talent. In a six day stretch he just produced two wins with two different quarterbacks playing well. Neither of those quarterbacks is his starter.
Compare that with Glenn. Ask what Glenn is doing to make this team better. Your perception of Glenn slowly making progress building this team might change faster than you can say, “Rabbit to duck.”
The best thing about the NFL is there’s a game the next week. A victory over the Browns can change perceptions back.
But for one week, the Jets have left many of us wondering whether the early stages of 2026 actually represent a meaningful step forward. They earned that through this performance.
