I don’t think you can say wins and losses are irrelevant when it comes to evaluating the 2025 New York Jets. A team that only wins 3 or 4 games probably didn’t show much progress.
But I do think it’s fair to say that wins and losses aren’t all that matters for this current iteration of the Jets. This is a team starting anew once again. With a first year head coach and general manager at the start of yet another rebuild, you can see reasons to feel good about a team in a loss. That was the case a week
ago. The Jets might have lost to the Steelers, but their young offensive line and quarterback showed flashes of promise.
Unfortunately, Week 2 showed no redeeming qualities for the Jets in a loss. In fact, everything that looked good a week ago regressed in this game.
I think everybody realizes that it will take Aaron Glenn time to turn the team around. A lot of players currently on the roster will not be here the next time the Jets are good. Many of these players aren’t just short on talent. They are fundamentally unsound football players who make dumb plays.
Still, one of the biggest things Glenn has preached since his hiring was discipline.
It was one thing for the Jets to lose to the Buffalo Bills. It was another to lose to the Buffalo Bills while looking like that.
Few observers think the Jets have much of a chance of being a winning football team this year. The biggest hopes are that they can be an opponent you don’t want to face. That requires playing smart football and giving nothing away easily.
The Jets made it easy for Buffalo in this one. It started on Buffalo’s first offensive series. The Bills faced a third and eight. Jets blitzers didn’t maintain the integrity in their rush lanes, and left a gap for Josh Allen to take off. The superstar quarterback broke a 40 yard run.
From there it was mistake after mistake. A Micheal Clemons roughing the passer negated a third down stop. A Justin Fields fumble gave Buffalo a short field. A Tony Adams penalty negated another third down stop. The defense messed up its run assignments and missed tackles left and right. Arian Smith couldn’t come down with a pass that could have gotten the offense moving and compounded the error by lining up offsides.
This game was a total mess for the Jets. Against a superior opponent you can’t gift things. If that happens, you do things like lose by 20 even though Josh Allen only throws for 148 yards on 25 attempts. The most impressive throw for Buffalo all day came from Mitchell Trubisky who temporarily replaced Allen after the reigning MVP took a hit to his nose. Trubisky threw a rope that turned into a 32 yard third down reception to extend a drive.
Unfortunately there were no impressive passes from the Jets’ quarterback. Justin Fields went a long way towards unraveling the optimism he built last week. His 3 for 11 line with 27 yards was indicative of how poor his play was. Sometimes the quarterback bears the brunt of the criticism for an all around poor offensive performance. Watching this game, it felt to me like the quarterback was the reason the Jets couldn’t move the ball. On most of his incompletions, Fields misfired to an open receiver. Key plays include missing an open Garrett Wilson on third down of New York’s first drive, and a brutal miss to Isaiah Davis right before halftime. Davis had nothing but open field in front of him and easily would have gotten the Jets into range for a field goal that would have made it a two score game heading into the locker room.
As we discussed last week, Fields’ performance against the Steelers was very good. He’s played at a high level before, however. The issue has been stacking good games. The true test of Fields in 2025 will be whether he shows he can play at a high level week after week rather than following up a good performance with a stinker. Unfortunately, his first opportunity ended in failure. Fields left the game in the second half after a big hit sent him to receive a test for a concussion so his status for next week is in question. Whenever Justin takes the field again, the Jets have to hope he looks more like the quarterback of Week 1 than Week 2, or wins will be hard to come by.
But Fields’ struggles could obscure a general lack of fight the Jets showed in this game. It’s tough to not think it started with the head coach. Aaron Glenn made some curious game management decisions, kicking a field goal down 20 points on a fourth and three in the second quarter and then punting on a fourth and one in the third. The team reflected its coach in this area. The Jets came out of the locker room and allowed back to back scoring drives of 12 and 14 plays respectively at a point where a stop could have given the team life. Instead the Jets got lifeless football the whole day.
The best thing any of us can say about this game is it’s over. We can only hope the Jets learn and get better. I would say that it’s tough to get worse, but long-time Jets fans know better.
