Aaron Glenn’s first season with the Jets is already tilting into dangerous territory, and the warning signs go well beyond the loss column.
Sunday’s 23-12 defeat to the Bears looked respectable on paper, but the box score tells a harsher story. Chicago piled up nearly 500 yards of offense and ran 89 plays, while the Jets managed only 32. New York has now dropped three straight and, based on what unfolded in Week 4, looks stuck on a path toward an 11th consecutive losing season.
Glenn tried to keep the noise out of the building after the game.
“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 history is getting harder to ignore because the current product is unraveling in multiple spots at once. The Jets were flagged 12 times for 76 yards on Sunday, and the discipline issues were only part of the mess.
The pass rush, expected to be one of the team’s strengths, has been far too quiet. According to The Athletic’s Zack Rosenblatt, there are 218 defenders who recorded 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, and his 10.6 percent mark ranks 90th league-wide.
The sack total looks better than the pressure numbers suggest. New York has nine sacks, but its top rushers have not turned opportunities into consistent disruption.
Will McDonald owns an 8.9 percent pressure rate and has just one tackle for loss, a Week 1 sack of Cam Ward. Offseason additions T’Vondre Sweat and Joseph Ossai still have not registered a tackle for loss.
There is some production in the aggregate - the Jets’ 17 tackles for loss line up with the league average of 17.7 - but that only sharpens the concern. The front seven is getting into position and still not finishing enough plays. Put that together with a penalty-ridden team, and the 1-3 start makes a lot more sense.
Glenn’s easygoing personality and the promise of a fresh start helped keep the fan base on board through the offseason, even after last year’s collapse. The Geno Smith trade and a draft class that drew praise made it easier to look past the fact that the Jets were outscored 188-54 over their final five games. The message around the team was that 2026 would be different.
Right now, though, the issues are piling up fast enough to make his future a real talking point. The sense from outside is that the Jets probably won’t make a move in the immediate future, barring a full-scale collapse before Thanksgiving. A midseason coaching change is no small thing in New York; Robert Saleh’s October 2024 dismissal was the first during the Woody Johnson era, which began in 2000.
If the Jets do end up moving on from Glenn before the season is over, Frank Reich would be the only coach on the staff with NFL head-coaching experience. Even that may not protect him, though, because the offense has also drawn increasing scrutiny heading into next Sunday’s matchup with the 3-1 Browns.
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