The Jets’ 20-17 loss to the Packers in Week 2 did more than blow a 10-point fourth-quarter lead. It also gave the team a hard look at Isaiah Williams, and that look wasn’t flattering.
Williams had spent the summer building buzz as a breakout name, and that hype had started to spill into doubts about Omar Cooper Jr. Week 2 pushed back on that idea. With Cooper sidelined by a high-ankle sprain and on injured reserve, Williams got the chance to run with a bigger workload, but he didn’t do much with it.
New York dressed only four receivers for the game - Williams, Garrett Wilson, Adonai Mitchell and Arian Smith - so Williams was on the field a lot. He played 61 of the Jets’ 74 wide receiver snaps and finished with six catches for 34 yards. He also added one carry for 14 yards, but the overall impact was limited.
The rough edges showed up in other areas, too. Williams muffed two punts, though both were recovered by Qwan'tez Stiggers. He also struggled as a run blocker, and Pro Football Focus gave him a 34.6 grade in that category, the lowest on the team.
That’s a far cry from what Cooper showed in his limited Week 1 action against the Tennessee Titans. He played just five snaps, but he made them count.
On the first play from scrimmage, Cooper delivered a pancake block on Titans CB Alontae Taylor in the run game. Later in that same drive, Geno Smith hit him on 3rd and 9 for a 30-yard gain, and Cooper broke multiple tackles while showing off the YAC ability that drew praise during the draft process.
Williams has been asked to hold down the spot while Cooper recovers, but his first two games have produced just seven catches for 41 yards. There’s still room for him to improve, but Week 2 made one thing clear: the talk that Williams had firmly jumped Cooper on the depth chart went too far.
Once Cooper is healthy again, he should have a role in the offense. He’s a rookie, so there will be a learning curve, but nothing in the summer chatter should have written him off. Williams, meanwhile, looks like a useful special teams player and a receiver better suited for WR4 or WR5 duties.
In Other News...
David Bailey Is Making Jets Fans Ask One Big Early Question
David Bailey has given Jets fans an immediate glimpse of why the organization spent the No. 2 overall pick on him in the 2026 NFL Draft. The rookie has managed sacks in each of his first two NFL games, something no Jets player had done since Shaun Ellis, and those early flashes have already made him one of the more watchable young pieces on the roster.
Still, the full picture is more complicated than the box score suggests. Pro Football Focus has graded Baileys pass-rush work below average so far, while his most encouraging snaps have come against the run, leaving his opening stretch as a mix of promising production and room to grow. For a player with this kind of draft status, that balance is exactly why the early questions around his development are already starting to matter. [Read more 🡒]
Packers Fans Got Caught In Foxs Most Infuriating Broadcast Mess
FOX Sports had a rough early stretch in Week 2 of the 2026 NFL season, and it reached New Yorks corner of the league window during the Packers-Jets game. Across multiple early slate broadcasts, viewers were hearing the wrong commentary for the games on their screens, a jarring mistake for anyone trying to follow along on a Sunday built around split-second updates and constant channel surfing.
The problems did not stop there, either. During overtime of Packers-Jets, FOX also briefly lost its scorebug, adding another layer to an already messy afternoon for viewers. The network fixed the audio issues before its primetime broadcast, but it still has not publicly explained what caused the earlier mix-up, leaving a frustrating broadcast snafu without much clarity for fans. [Read more 🡒]
Jets Loss May Have Overshadowed A Huge Offensive Change
Even with the Week 2 loss to Green Bay hanging over the conversation, the early shape of the Jets offense has been hard to miss. Through two games, New Yorks pass protection has looked dramatically better, and Pro Football Focus has the offensive line ranked first in its pass-blocking grade. For a team that has spent recent seasons searching for stability up front, that kind of early traction matters as much as any single result.
Geno Smith has been the clearest beneficiary. He has had more time to operate, averaging more than 3 seconds to throw while keeping his pressure rate below the league average, a sign the line is giving the offense a chance to function on schedule. The loss may have obscured it for a night, but the bigger story for the Jets is that one of their most persistent weaknesses appears to be turning into a real strength. [Read more 🡒]