The Jets found a way to make a bad day even worse Sunday, and the loss to an 0-5 team at home left the season feeling like it had already slid off the rails.
It started early and never really improved. New York gave up 14 first-quarter points to a team that had been averaging 14 points per game coming into Sunday.
By halftime, the Dolphins had piled up more first downs, 18, than the Jets had offensive plays, 17. And when the Jets reached first-and-goal at the 1, they walked away with only a 33-yard field goal.
Garrett Wilson was part of the frustration, too. He saw no targets in the first half and finished with just 10% of the team’s total targets. At one point, he was in the middle of a sideline outburst, shouting at Geno, shouting at Seth Ryan, shouting at Frank Reich or just shouting into the void.
Even the late-game management added to the mess. Aaron Glenn kept his timeouts in his pocket while the Dolphins ran the clock down and scored a touchdown in the final two minutes.
Under Glenn, the Jets have now been outscored 107-6 in the final two minutes of the half. He’s also now 5-19 as a head coach with the Jets and 0-8 in divisional games.
That’s why a 2-5 start feels so heavy. Officially, the Jets won’t be eliminated from contention for weeks, but the tone around this team has already turned. The schedule ahead doesn’t offer much comfort either: Raiders, Chiefs, Bills, Chargers, Dolphins, Broncos, Cardinals, Patriots, Vikings, Bills.
The Raiders, Chargers, Dolphins and Cardinals might look manageable on paper, but after losing to an 0-5 team at home, the Jets won’t be favored in any of them. Even if they somehow won all four, that would still only get them to 6-11. And that would leave Glenn at 9-25 as a head coach and 1-11 in the division.
The comparison with Robert Saleh is hard to ignore, either. Saleh went 20-36 in his Jets tenure, won four games in his first year, and then followed that with back-to-back 7-10 seasons. That’s a number Glenn would probably take right now, given where things stand.
There were a few bright spots buried inside the loss. Geno Smith went 23 of 30 for 287 yards with three touchdowns and one interception.
Braelon Allen ran for 104 yards at 6.1 yards a carry. Omar Cooper Jr. had five catches for 115 yards and a touchdown.
Mason Taylor caught two touchdown passes. Nathaniel Lynn added a big third-down sack.
But the overall picture drowned all of that out.
“I understand fans being upset or being agitated, but I think saying we’re going in the wrong direction is a very far-off statement when you talk about building something,” Davis said. “It’s disappointing when you’re not getting the results that you want.
We’re not building this team to be an ‘almost’ team where every game is ‘almost.’ We’re building a team to have a winning standard in everything that we gotta do.
When you talk about going in the right direction, you gotta get to ‘almost’ before you get to ‘there.’”
Even that defense of the process doesn’t change what Sunday looked like. The Jets may not be going backward from 2025, but relative to where they opened this season, the defense has clearly slipped. More than anything, the coaching has become the glaring issue.
Glenn said he “absolutely” had them ready to play, but the results said otherwise. The Dolphins had never led in a game through their first five weeks, and on Sunday they never trailed once.
The sense around the team is that Glenn probably keeps his job for the rest of the season. But with the way this is unfolding, the idea that the Jets will be searching for a new head coach in about two and a half months doesn’t feel far-fetched at all.
For now, the only thing left is a short road to more trouble. If the Jets lose to the Raiders next week and fall to 2-6 with the Chiefs and Bills coming after that, the path points straight toward 2-8 and a whole lot more embarrassment.
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Mike Tomlin Just Put The Jets Biggest Late-Game Problem On Blast
The Jets loss to the Dolphins only added to a familiar frustration in a 2-5 start, but the bigger concern may be how quickly games have tilted against them before halftime even arrives. Under Robert Glenn, New York has repeatedly struggled in the final stretch of the first half, an issue that has become hard to ignore as the losses pile up and the margin for error shrinks.
Mike Tomlin brought that weakness into the national spotlight during NBCs Sunday Night Football coverage, underscoring just how glaring it has become for a team trying to stay afloat. For the Jets, it is not just about one bad night in Miami. It is about a pattern that keeps showing up in the same part of the game, and it now has outside voices calling attention to how costly it could be if it keeps happening. [Read more 🡒]
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Tippmanns early work suggested he could be part of the long-term answer, but his pass protection has tailed off enough to add another layer to the problem. When one interior lineman starts losing those one-on-one battles, the ripple effect is felt across the entire offense, and the Jets have been paying for it in drives that stall too quickly and plays that never get a chance to develop. [Read more 🡒]
Jets O Line Problems Have Put One Starter Under Serious Pressure
The Jets offensive line has been one of the seasons biggest headaches, and the issues have shown up everywhere from pass protection to the run game. With the unit struggling to keep the pocket clean and create any kind of consistent push, one starter in particular has drawn extra scrutiny as the problems continue to pile up.
Josh Myers has become the focal point of that criticism, with his play at center coming under the microscope for penalties, pressures allowed and shaky blocking in the trenches. The evaluation is blunt enough that it raises a real question about whether the Jets need to make a change there, even if the decision has not been made yet. [Read more 🡒]