Aaron Glenn spent the offseason trying to win back Jets fans. After Sunday, the leash looks a lot shorter.
New York got blasted 23-12 by the Bears in Week 4, a final score that flatters the Jets more than it should. Chicago piled up nearly 500 yards of offense and ran 89 plays to New York’s 32, turning what looked like a respectable box score into a far uglier reality.
The loss was the Jets’ third straight, and it put them on pace for what could become an 11th consecutive losing season. Glenn tried to keep the outside noise from bleeding into the locker room.
“Inside that locker room, I want my guys not to think about history, because it’s going to be brought up so much from the outside, people beating us down with history,” Glenn told reporters. “We just have to circle the wagons and not let any of that come inside our locker room.”
The problem is that the numbers are getting harder to ignore.
New York committed 12 penalties for 76 yards, and that was only part of the mess. The Jets’ pass rush, supposed to be one of the team’s strengths, has not come close to delivering the kind of impact the roster suggested it might.
According to The Athletic’s Zack Rosenblatt, among 218 defenders with at least 25 pass-rushing snaps from Weeks 2-4, rookie edge rusher David Bailey is the only Jets player with at least a 9 percent pressure rate. His 10.6 percent mark ranks 90th league-wide.
The sack total looks decent at nine, but the pressure hasn’t been coming from the names New York needed most. Will McDonald has an 8.9 percent pressure rate and only one tackle for loss, a Week 1 sack of Cam Ward. Offseason additions T’Vondre Sweat and Joseph Ossai still haven’t recorded a tackle for loss.
That’s what makes the defensive picture so frustrating for the Jets. The front seven is producing some disruption - New York’s 17 tackles for loss are in line with the league average of 17.7 - but it isn’t closing possessions the way a high-expectation unit should. Add in the penalties, and the result is a 1-3 start that feels messy in just about every phase.
Glenn’s offseason charm offensive had helped keep hope alive even after last year’s ugly finish. The Geno Smith trade and a well-regarded draft class made it easier to look past the fact that the Jets were outscored 188-54 over their final five games. The talking point was that things would be different in 2026.
Now, with the defense wobbling and the offense making some baffling choices of its own, Glenn may be losing the margin for error. The Jets probably won’t make a move in the immediate future; barring a total collapse before Thanksgiving, the team is not expected to fire him in the next few weeks. Robert Saleh’s October 2024 dismissal was the first midseason coaching change of the Woody Johnson era, which dates to 2000.
If New York does eventually go that route, offensive coordinator Frank Reich stands as the only coach on the staff with NFL head-coaching experience. Even so, the offense has been struggling enough that Reich’s own status is under the microscope heading into next Sunday’s game against the 3-1 Browns.
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