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.
In Other News...
Packers Fans Still Debate The Ezra Johnson Sideline Controversy
When Packers fans look back at the best players to wear No. 90, Ezra Johnson sits at the top of the list for good reason. A first-round pick in 1977, he spent 11 seasons in Green Bay and piled up 82.0 sacks, still the third-most in franchise history, which is enough to make him a notable figure even before the old sideline story enters the conversation.
The controversy attached to Johnson has lingered because it came during a rough stretch and touched a nerve inside the organization, turning a preseason moment into a lasting talking point. It remains one of those Packers footnotes that gets revisited whenever Johnsons name comes up, especially by fans who remember the era and still disagree about how it should have been handled. [Read more 🡒]
Packers-Bears History Holds Some Surprising Firsts Fans May Not Know
A look back through Packers-Bears history turns up some early landmarks that still feel surprising. Green Bays record book points to Verne Lewellens 100-yard receiving game in 1926, Clark Hinkles earliest documented 100-yard rushing effort in 1936 and even the first recorded sacks by Cliff Lewis and Ezra Johnson in 1983, reminders that some of the franchises biggest statistical milestones came long before modern passing numbers became routine.
The old rivalry also carries a few record-book quirks because the early eras were not always tracked with the same precision we expect now. Lynn Dickeys 1983 outing stands out as a major passing benchmark, and Don Hutsons name surfaces in another unusual place in the statistical history against Chicago, with the available records leaving just enough uncertainty to keep the story from feeling fully settled. [Read more 🡒]
Packers Backfield Just Got Thinner At The Worst Time
The Packers backfield took another hit this week, with the club forced to adjust on the fly after Chris Brooks went down in Week 4. Brooks had been part of Green Bays depth at running back, and now the team is staring at at least four games without him, starting with the Week 5 matchup against the Bears.
Pierre Strong Jr. has been brought up to the active roster to help patch the position group in Brooks absence. For Green Bay, the timing only adds to the pressure on a backfield that was already being asked to hold together through early-season attrition, and the next few weeks will show how much flexibility the staff still has there. [Read more 🡒]