The New York Jets had their season hanging in the balance. After snapping a disastrous five-game losing streak the weak prior with a 21-13 win against the Houston Texans, the stars seemed to align for a comeback. The goal was a Super Bowl. The roster, on paper, was one of the league’s best.
Taking on the Cardinals in the desert meant the Jets had already seen the Indianapolis Colts and the Denver Broncos, two teams they are chasing in the Wild Card race, lose. Facing adversity and overcoming it in big moments like this is the reason the Jets acquired future Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers, and why the team pulled the trigger on a trade for All-Pro WR Davante Adams.
Instead, they failed to show up, laying an egg in a 31-6 loss and delivering a death knell to their playoff hopes. Now sitting with just a 9.4% chance of making the playoffs following a precipitous 26.12% drop as a result of the latest loss, there are plenty of scapegoats to go around.
It’s time to face the music, Aaron Rodgers has not been good enough
Going into the season all reasonable fans and analysts knew to temper expectations for Rodgers. Approaching his 41st birthday and coming off a devastating torn Achilles, while also coming off a down year in 2022, it would be unreasonable to expect him to continue playing like one of the best to ever play the quarterback position. That isn’t what the Jets needed anyway. They just needed him to be an above-average signal caller who could lead the stacked roster to more victories than losses.
Unfortunately, that’s not what the Jets have received. While Rodgers has had some turn-back-the-clock moments, such as Week 6’s miraculous Hail Mary to Allen Lazard against the Buffalo Bills, those special moments have been fleeting and inconsistent.
Rodgers responded in a must-win game against Arizona with possibly his worst performance on the season, totaling a season-low 151 passing yards on 22 completions on 35 attempts (62.8%), zero touchdowns, zero interceptions, and taking three sacks.
On the season, Rodgers ranks 22nd in yards per attempt (6.4), 23rd in completion percentage (62.4%), 21st in average depth of target (7.4 yards), and 19th in adjusted completion percentage (73.9%) all while posting the second-most passing attempts (351) in the league. No matter how you slice it, he’s been a below-average quarterback this season.
Maybe firing Robert Saleh was the wrong call
The Jets sought a spark by firing head coach Robert Saleh just five weeks into the season with the team’s record sitting at 2-3. They’ve gone 1-4 since, showing that the change in leadership did not provide the shot to the arm that owner Woody Johnson had hoped.
Saleh was fired because the team was playing undisciplined football, among the league leaders in penalties, and failed to show up in big spots.
Under interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich, things have not changed and have seemingly only gotten worse. Through the first five weeks of the season, the Jets were the seventh-most penalized team in the NFL, averaging 7.8 penalties per game, however, currently, they are the fifth-most penalized team in the league. In terms of penalty yardage, they are second in most total yards allowed via penalties this season at a whopping 675 yards.
Defensively, they have regressed. Throughout the last couple of seasons, Ulbrich had gotten a lot of credit for the defense’s stellar performance, however, Robert Saleh made his name in the league as a defensive coordinator and was the architect of the system.
Under Saleh, the Jets defense allowed just 17 points per game. In the five games since his firing, that number has ballooned to 25.8 points per game. The discipline issue and defensive ineptitude are related.
In Sunday’s debacle, there were breakdowns at every level of the defense. The line failed to maintain gap integrity against the run. The linebackers took poor angles in pursuit. The secondary was exploited in coverage. And, most critically, woefully poor tackling plagued the Jets on every level of the defense.
The switch to Ulbrich was supposed to restore order, however, it has had the opposite effect.
Two big-name additions have produced very little
The Jets offense was supposed to take off with the addition of WR Davante Adams. The defense was to be fortified by finally welcoming back holdout Haason Reddick whose return served as a pseudo-trade addition. Neither has paid dividends on a large scale so far.
Starting with Adams, the long-time Green Bay Packer was supposed to have a near-telepathic connection with Rodgers. Both highly detailed professionals with immense talents and a keen sense of maximizing the finer points of the game, the Adams addition was supposed to offset a lot of the issues Rodgers has had getting on the same page with his receivers.
With the exception of a solid performance against Houston, which saw Adams haul in 7 passes for 91 yards and a touchdown, Adams himself has had trouble getting on the same page as Rodgers. As a Jet, Adams has hauled in just 20 passes on 39 targets for a subpar 51.3% catch percentage, while contributing just 206 yards through four games. Take out the performance in Houston, and he’s produced an average of 4.33 receptions and 37.33 yards per game in his three other games since joining New York.
On Sunday, the miscommunications were readily apparent. Early in the game, before the score got out of hand, Adams ran a quick hitch on a key third down. Rodgers fired wide left for an incompletion, expecting his old friend to break outside for a speed-out instead. On the day, Adams saw 13 targets, more than double that of Garrett Wilson or any other Jets’ receiver, yet only hauled in six passes for a measly 31 yards. Sunday was just a microcosm of how this pairing has not lived up to the hype.
As for Reddick, it was expected that he’d need some time to round into shape after missing the entire offseason program, preseason, and the first seven weeks of the regular season. He wasn’t expected to, and hasn’t, played a full workload with just 93 defensive snaps played through three games which is just 45% of the total snaps.
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While relegated to a situational pass rusher role as he builds up, he was still expected to make an impact as he’s been one of the NFL’s premier speed rushers and sack artists over the last four seasons.
Instead, Reddick has generated just half a sack on the season, and has graded out poorly in both his pass rush and run defense, with grades of 60.9 and 66.8 respectively per Pro Football Focus. Even with the caveat that he’d have to take some time to return to form, it has been a disappointing performance for a man who wants to be paid as one of the very best edge defenders in the NFL.
Up next for the New York Jets
The Jets host the Indianapolis Colts with their playoff hopes fading fast. The matchup will be a crucial one, with the AFC South’s second-place team ahead of the Jets in the Wild Card race. The Colts will welcome 2023’s fourth-overall pick, dual-threat QB Anthony Richardson, back to the starting lineup after the Jets’ old friend Joe Flacco struggled in their loss to Buffalo last week.
While the Jets’ season seems to be over, if they have even the slightest sliver of hope to turn things around this is a must-win game. New York will likely have to run the table as well as get outside help in order to sneak into a Wild Card spot, but all will be for naught if they lose this game to a young Indy team that is ahead of them in the standings.
