Jets having trouble shaking 'same old' moniker despite new regime

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – There was no emotion. No anger. Not yet. Aaron Glenn did what he could to remain stoic as he trekked through the tunnels of HardRock Stadium to the visiting locker room.

You knew it wouldn’t last. The first-year coach, who so vehemently denied any reminiscence of his team being the Same Old Jets, watched as they instead paid tribute. A 27-21 loss to the hapless, previously-winless Dolphins on national television. 

The wails came moments later, penetrating the lone wall separating Glenn from the podium he’d soon address the media behind. He implored his team that this wasn’t good enough. Things needed to change – they would change – they had to change. 

There’s no reason to believe anyone was listening. 

A month into the season, the 0-4 Jets have forged their identity: They are ill-prepared, undisciplined, poorly coached.  

“Teams shoot themselves in the foot,” Breece Hall said. “Then we come back and shoot ourselves in the head.”

You couldn’t hear much because there wasn’t much being said. There wasn’t much to say. The Jets truly believed they’d found something a week before in their loss to the Bucs. The way they fought back after falling behind, nearly pulling a miracle on Will McDonald’s blocked field goal. They fell short, but it was the start of something. 

This game against the Dolphins would be the corner turn. It had to be. 

“They are not better than us,” one player repeated over and over to SNY after the game. “They are not.” 

The Jets out-gained the Dolphins (404-300). The Jets had more first downs (23-19). The Jets were better on third down (44 percent to 33 percent). They had 197 rushing yards. Justin Fields (20 of 27 for 226 yards and a touchdown) finished with a quarterback rating of 111. He had another 81 yards, including a dazzling 43-yard score, on the ground.

But the Dolphins won because the Jets committed 16 penalties, 13 accepted for 101 yards. The Dolphins won because the Jets turned it over three times, including a Braelon Allen fumble going into the end zone and another by Isaiah Williams to start the second half with the Jets down just seven. The Dolphins won because of the Jets incessant mental errors, like Williams fair catching a punt inside his five-yard line. They won because of coaching mishaps like punting on fourth and 10 down eleven points with 7:12 to go. 

Dating back to organized team activities, and continuing throughout minicamp, training camp and the preseason, Glenn preached discipline, aggressiveness. His opening news conference: “We’re the New York Jets, and we’re built for this sh–.” This team would be different. They would be different from the start. The goal, he said at the NFL Combine, was to “win now.” 

Yet here the Jets are, the calendar 24 hours from October, winless. One team in NFL history (the Chargers in 1992) have made the playoffs after starting 0-4. The Jets will not be the second – it’s laughable to even consider it with the way they invent ways to lose. 

“You know what?” Glenn said. “We have to figure that out."

There are other issues. The offensive line allowed routine pressure on Fields. He survived it with his legs, but that isn’t sustainable. Teams continue to pick on Sauce Gardner, who allowed a touchdown to Darren Waller and flagged for a pass interference. They did not have a sack or a quarterback hit. They haven’t forced a turnover this year.

The Jets are just the fifth team over the last 90 seasons to start a season 0-4 without recording a takeaway, according to ESPN. 

Then there’s the defense as a whole. The scheme lacks creativity. The players are not good enough to make plays on their own. The opposition finds one thing each week that works, then runs it over and over and over again with no adjustment. On Monday night, it was the naked bootleg.

“I want to win because it’s something I want to put on my resume,” said Gardner. “Nobody wants to just keep losing.” 

You want to believe this regime is different. You hope they will figure it out.  This will be the 15th season absent from the playoffs – the longest drought in American professional sports. Eventually something has to break the Jets way. It would be wrong to expect championships the first year of a regime – Glenn and Darren Mougey deserve time. They do. 

The problem with the Jets is that they aren’t fixing anything. The problems they were believed to have before free agency, the draft – cornerback, defensive line depth, receiver opposite Garrett Wilson –  are still there. The problems they swore they'd fix, like the penalties and mental errors, pop up time and time again.

Glenn said these aren’t the same old Jets, but they continue to make the same old mistakes. They don’t find ways to win. They invent ways to lose. 

And they don’t seem to have any idea on how to stop.

“At the end of the day, what do you want your legacy in this league to be?” Wilson said. “We’ve got to go now.”