It is O.K. to look at the current state of the New York Jets and feel some level of optimism about the program coach Aaron Glenn is building, one he’s modeling on the Detroit Lions’ rebuild.
It is also O.K. to look at the facts — and the Jets’ history — and be skeptical. The team is 2-9. They were 0-7. Glenn’s hand-picked quarterback was benched before Thanksgiving. The New England Patriots are in their first year with a new coach and are already competing for the No. 1 seed in the AFC. The Chicago Bears lead the NFC North and hired a Lions assistant, too.
For all the things you can point to as positives heading into next year — which we did Wednesday — the list of reasons to be pessimistic is equally long. Glenn, after all, is not the first Jets coach to preach patience when the winning didn’t come right away.
On Wednesday, we looked at the glass as half-full. Here’s the glass half-empty.
1. Quarterback questions
There was logic behind signing Justin Fields as a free agent last March. The Jets were a rebuilding team without an obvious quarterback option after moving on from Aaron Rodgers. Why not buy a lottery ticket and see what happens? Ultimately, Fields proved to be who he always was (in many ways, he was worse). It is fair to criticize the Jets’ evaluation, even if the process broadly made sense; however, Fields’ contract is not debilitating.
Fields was mostly a disaster outside of his performances against the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cincinnati Bengals. The Jets made the same mistake with him that they did with Zach Wilson in 2021, when handing Wilson the starting job unencumbered. Would Tyrod Taylor (who out-played Fields in training camp) have beaten him out in a real competition?
The Jets enter the offseason still with a major question mark at the only position that matters most for any organization partaking in a rebuild. The Patriots turned things around with coach Mike Vrabel in part because they have Drake Maye. To a lesser degree, the same is true with quarterback Caleb Williams and first-year coach Ben Johnson in Chicago. The Jets do not have a Maye or Williams. Rebuilds succeed or fail on the backs of quality quarterback play. The Lions rejuvenated Jared Goff and never looked back. New York did not rejuvenate Fields, and the offense that was supposedly going to unlock his best skills never materialized.
The Jets also go into 2026 having to answer whether they have the coaches and environment in place to develop a franchise quarterback.
“I think the first thing I do is I look inward at myself and go, ‘What is it that I can do better?’ And there’s definitely some things that I can do, and I’m not going to divulge all that,” offensive coordinator Tanner Engstrand said. “I always want to look at myself first and see: Am I making sure that I’m putting him (the quarterback) in the right position, at the right time? And I just got to continue to evaluate that on a daily basis. We’re in the situation we’re in, and we’re going to move forward with that.”
The prospects considered the top of this draft class — Fernando Mendoza, Ty Simpson, Dante Moore — are flawed in different ways. Many seem to think Moore won’t be declaring anyway, and the Jets might only be a win or two away from falling out of position to get one. They’re at No. 4 behind two teams that don’t need quarterbacks (the Tennessee Titans and the New York Giants) and one that does (the New Orleans Saints). Just behind them, the Las Vegas Raiders, the Cleveland Browns and the Arizona Cardinals are all likely to be in on the QBs.
And no, the Jets are not going to tank for better draft positioning — as they shouldn’t.
“I’m going to give you a line you guys heard before: We play the game to win,” Glenn said, echoing former Jets Herm Edwards.
2. Losing, same-old-Jets style
Jets fans have been around the block. They’ve heard many Jets coaches justify a bad season by pointing out how many close games they played in and how, if they change a play here or there, things would look a lot different. But, at least here, the wins haven’t followed.
During the Robert Saleh years, New York consistently lost close games it should’ve won. It’s an understandable way to express optimism that things will turn for the better, but the way the Jets have lost this season is the same they have for many seasons running: unconscionable mistakes at inopportune times, like the goal-line fumbles from Breece Hall (against Baltimore) and Braelon Allen (Miami), Xavier Gipson coughing up a game-changing kick return fumble against the Steelers in Week 1, and Isaiah Williams muffing a punt in Miami.
There have been maddening penalties, drops and mental errors throughout the season — along with some confounding coaching decisions. It’s a young team (the Jets have given more snaps to first and second-year players than any team in the NFL), so that’s understandable to a degree.
The Glenn-led Jets have yet to give reason to believe this team will overcome those errors next year.
3. Lack of identity on defense, and coordinator questions
Before the season, Glenn often declined to answer questions tied to what he wanted the Jets’ identity to be on offense or defense. It wasn’t hard to figure out who they were, or wanted to be, on offense: a smashmouth running team. They’ve mostly been that, though the poor passing game has held them back.
What is the team’s identity on defense? There’s no clear answer, and it’s Week 13. This isn’t a defense that forces turnovers (more on that momentarily). The Jets don’t consistently rush the passer. They aren’t fundamentally sound — especially in terms of tackling, where they had the NFL’s seventh-most missed tackles through Monday. And it rarely feels like they hold a schematic advantage over their opponent.
Defensive coordinator Steve Wilks came in with a reputation as an aggressive play-caller, but the blitzing rarely created pressure early in the season, and now the Jets don’t blitz much at all. From Weeks 1-7, they blitzed on 31.6 percent of snaps — seventh-most in the NFL — but the Jets still ranked 31st in pressure rate and 26th in sack rate. Since Week 8, they’ve only blitzed 22.1 percent of the time, which ranks 25th. Their pressure rate (18th) and sack rate (18th) have both gone up, but not enough to make a real impact.
The defense has done decent on third down (eighth) and on keeping teams out of the end zone once they get to the red zone (56.1 percent touchdown rate, which ranks 12th). But the bad has mostly outweighed the good. Among the areas they rank at (or near) the bottom of the league: 27th in points per drive, 27th in EPA per dropback, 32nd in turnover margin, 28th in pressure rate, 28th in sacks and 29th in first rate. They’re also 30th in completions allowed of 10 or more yards, 30th in percentage of completions ending in a first down or touchdown, 28th in splash play rate, 29th in explosive pass rate, 26th in scoring defense, 30th in yards after catch per reception and 32nd in fourth down conversions.
And that, of course, is not the worst of it.
4. No takeaways
We are in historical territory when it comes to the Jets’ inability to force turnovers. They have one takeaway in 11 games, and zero interceptions. (Technically, they have zero takeaways in the U. S. Their one takeaway was a forced fumble against the Denver Broncos in London.)
How is that possible?
“I can’t really answer that because it’s something we talk about every day,” linebacker Quincy Williams said. “It’s something that we work on in practice. We do see those visions of us doing it in the games — it just hasn’t gone our way.”
There is some level of luck involved with interceptions — but not this much.
“I definitely don’t want to say that the guys aren’t in position, and I don’t believe in luck,” Wilks said. “So, we’ve got to create our own luck, if you want to say that.”
The Jets are the first team in NFL history to go without an interception for the first 11 games of a season. They are currently on pace for the fewest takeaways in NFL history (or at least since interceptions became an official stat in 1940). The San Francisco 49ers finished with seven takeaways in 2018 — two of them interceptions. The 2020 Houston Texans, the 2021 Jacksonville Jaguars and the 2024 Jaguars finished with nine takeaways. The Jets have one.
TruMedia has tracked turnover percentage since 2000. The 2025 Jets, with takeaways on 0.8 percent of opponents’ drives, rank 830th out of 830 teams during that span. (The 2018 49ers are 829th at 3.9 percent.)
New York is starting two rookies in the secondary (cornerback Azareye’h Thomas and safety Malachi Moore) after trading away Sauce Gardner and losing safety Andre Cisco to a season-ending injury, but it’s not as if the defense was performing when everyone was still here.
It’s conceivable that the Jets’ inability to produce turnovers (or get consistent stops) on defense leads to Glenn making a change at defensive coordinator — or at worst getting more involved in the defensive play-calling in 2026.
5. Lack of proven weapons
As far as their receiving corps goes, the Jets can only count on Garrett Wilson as a sure thing in 2026, and he’ll be coming off a season marred by injuries. John Metchie (nine catches, 110 yards, two touchdowns) and Adonai Mitchell (three catches, 52 yards) have flashed talent in two games, but neither should be banked on to be anything more than No. 3 receivers in 2026.
This is fixable. I’d expect the Jets to add starting-caliber receivers in the NFL Draft and free agency. Some notable receivers scheduled to hit the open market this offseason: Deebo Samuel, Jakobi Meyers, Jauan Jennings, Wan’Dale Robinson, Alec Pierce and Romeo Doubs.
6. Breece Hall’s hands still being ignored
Maybe one day, a Jets coach will feature Hall as a pass-catcher. Glenn spent the offseason promising that it was coming, but it hasn’t happened. Hall has been targeted four or fewer times in eight of 11 games and never more than six times. Hall ranks 24th in routes run and 11th in targets among running backs. He ranked third in both categories in 2024, and eighth and first in 2023; Hall, somehow, is being used even less as a pass-catcher now than before.
Hall is the Jets’ most dynamic playmaker. It’s a major knock against Engstrand that he hasn’t figured out how to use him in the passing game yet, even if it’s fair to factor Fields’ struggles into that equation.
7. Holes on defense
The Jets can feel good about six key players on their defense heading into 2026: defensive ends Will McDonald and Jermaine Johnson, cornerbacks Brandon Stephens and Jarvis Brownlee, and defensive tackles Harrison Phillips and Jowon Briggs.
Though in that group, McDonald (seven sacks, four in one game) has been inconsistent, and Briggs has never been a full-time starter. At linebacker, Jamien Sherwood has been a disappointment since signing a big contract, and Quincy Williams will be a free agent and feels unlikely to return. In the secondary, Moore and Thomas are still unproven. The Jets will need an infusion of talent on all three levels.
