The Jets are sitting at 2-6, the mood around the team is bleak, and the 2026 season already feels like it’s slipping away. After back-to-back losses to the Miami Dolphins and Las Vegas Raiders, games that looked winnable on paper, the path to 4-4 is gone and the schedule only gets harder from here.
That kind of slide naturally sends fans looking backward. With a few former Jets still making noise around the league, there’s at least something to keep an eye on if you’re in the mood for a little hate-watch.
Aaron Rodgers is the name that will always get the biggest reaction. He’s now 6-2 with the Pittsburgh Steelers, which is enough to sting for anyone still tracking his old team.
But the numbers and the results don’t tell the full story. Rodgers is playing well, but he is not the driving force behind Pittsburgh sitting in first place in the AFC North, and his production is still below league average.
For Jets fans, the bigger takeaway is that the quarterback play they’re getting from Geno Smith is more than enough reason to feel good about moving on. No, they would not be better off if they still had Rodgers; it was, and still always will be, the correct decision to part ways with him the way they did early in 2025.
Robert Saleh is also worth watching in Tennessee. The Titans are beginning to look more functional, and Saleh even helped the Jets indirectly in Week 6 by beating the Indianapolis Colts on the road, improving New York’s draft position.
In Week 8, Tennessee went toe-to-toe with Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals, and Cam Ward turned in the best game of his young career. After early talk that Saleh’s job might be in danger after one season, he now looks almost certain to get another year in Nashville if this trend continues.
There’s also the Jermaine Johnson-T’Vondre Sweat trade to revisit, and it’s not flattering for anyone who thought the Jets came out on the short end. Sweat is hurt right now, but he has been New York’s best defensive tackle and one of the league’s top run-stuffers.
Johnson, meanwhile, has settled in as a middle-of-the-pack edge rusher with free agency approaching and more questions than answers. His Pro Football Focus pass rush grade of 53.5 ranks 102nd among 111 qualified players.
Sauce Gardner’s situation is different, and it’s easy to feel for him. The Colts’ recent blockbuster trade helped cost general manager Chris Ballard his job, but Gardner can’t be blamed for Indianapolis betting so heavily on a player who is only good as a coverage cornerback.
Gardner is having a down year, but the Colts’ collapse is not on him. If anything, Jets fans should be grateful for the return they got in that deal just over a year ago, because it may be the package that finally helps steer the franchise in the right direction.
Then there’s Quinnen Williams, one of the best Jets of the modern era. He started 2026 slowly, but he’s picked things up for the Dallas Cowboys.
Even so, the old Jets feeling seems to have followed him there. Williams posted two sacks, two tackles for loss and seven tackles against the Arizona Cardinals in Week 8, yet Dallas still lost in overtime, 33-30, and dropped to 3-5.
At this point, that 2027 first-round pick keeps looking better and better.
In Other News...
Jets Painful Reset Is Starting To Look Very Different One Year Later
One year after the Jets made the kind of franchise-altering move that usually gets judged for years, the picture around those deals is already changing. New York sent Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams away on Nov. 4, 2025, and in return landed a pile of draft capital plus Adonai Mitchell and Mazi Smith, a reset that looked painful in the moment but was clearly meant to give the team more ways to rebuild on the fly.
The early returns have helped the Jets feel a little better about the path they chose. Indianapolis has stumbled through a losing stretch and roster changes since the trades, Gardners play has dipped, and Mitchell has given New York a dependable presence at receiver. With so many picks in hand, the Jets now have the flexibility to keep reshaping the roster however they see fit, which is exactly why this kind of move was made in the first place. [Read more 🡒]
Jets Draft Focus Is Already Shifting After This Brutal Start
The season has barely settled in and the conversation around the Jets is already drifting toward April. After a 2-6 start, the front office is looking ahead to a 2027 draft haul that includes three first-round picks, a rare chance to attack more than one hole at once and reset a roster that still needs help in key spots.
Among the names drawing early attention are Georgia cornerback Ellis Robinson IV, Tennessee defensive lineman Xavier Gilliam and Notre Dame quarterback CJ Carr. The fit is obvious enough: the Jets need more help in the secondary, more juice up front and more clarity in the quarterback room, and with that kind of draft capital, they can start lining up answers well before the board is set. [Read more 🡒]
Breece Hall Just Got Pulled Into A New York Trade Twist
The running back market is suddenly part of the conversation in New York, with the Giants exploring ways to add help before the NFL trade deadline and Jonathan Taylor emerging as the name drawing the most attention. Indianapolis may not make that easy, though, since the Colts are believed to be asking for a steep return and could still decide to keep Taylor for the rest of the season, which would force the Giants to keep looking at other options.
If Taylor never becomes available, the search could shift toward familiar names on the board, and Breece Hall is among the backs being mentioned in that broader discussion. For the Jets, it is the kind of cross-town wrinkle that naturally gets noticed, even if the market is still fluid and the deadline picture remains unsettled. [Read more 🡒]