Rich Cimini, ESPN staff writer
FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — In the early hours of Sept. 10, the New York Jets’ team plane was heading east when talk among some coaches turned to a promising season. They had just been embarrassed in Week 1 on “Monday Night Football” — losing 32-19 to the San Francisco 49ers — but their confidence was still as high as 40,000 feet.
“I remember someone on the plane saying over and over again, ‘When we’re 2-1, watch out,'” interim coach Jeff Ubrich recalled.
The Jets went 2-1 with wins over the Tennessee Titans and New England Patriots, but then the team fell apart.
They lost 11 of their next 14 games, completing perhaps the most disappointing season in franchise history. With quarterback Aaron Rodgers healthy, the Jets consider themselves a championship contender. Woody Johnson called this the best lineup he has had in 25 years of coaching. What has happened over the past four months has been a collapse of epic proportions, a 5-12 season that often defies logic.
This team boasts at least three potential Hall of Famers (wide receiver Davante Adams, tackle Tyron Smith and Rodgers), several standout stars and several rising talents who have proven themselves early on. Losing the lead and being awarded a penalty felt like this was a rebuilding phase for a young, unproven team.
“It’s heart-wrenching,” defensive tackle Javon Kinlaw said.
The Jets have lost a franchise-record six games after taking a fourth-quarter lead, taking a league-high 137 penalties, eclipsing the 30-point mark just twice and losing six games in which they were favored. game – that’s the true definition of underperformance. Only the 49ers (7) have lost more as favorites.
It was a season unlike any in recent generations as a head coach was fired mid-season for the first time since 1975. Four weeks after the San Francisco plane talk, Ulbricht replaced Robert Saleh, who was fired after a 2-3 start.
General manager Joe Douglas was fired six weeks later, but Saleh’s firing triggered the end of the season, according to several players. Beyond the shock, they said, it undermined the foundations and created an atmosphere of uncertainty.
“It’s hard for a team to win when you know your coach and general manager are fired in the middle of the season,” running back Breece Hall said. “It’s just a lot of things that are up in the air.”
“It had an impact on the team because it took the focus away,” cornerback DJ Reed said.
Ulbricht was a popular defensive coordinator, but he had no head coaching experience at any level. That, combined with the burden of wearing two hats (head coach and defensive coordinator), prompted players to wonder throughout the season whether Ulbricht was stretched too thin.
“It puts more of a burden on Brick,” Nickelback Isaiah Oliver said of Saleh’s firing. “It puts more of a burden on everybody — the coaches, the staff. So is it effective? I’m not sure. You think maybe that’s the reason. Maybe not. I don’t know.” I don’t know, but you Can’t help but wonder. “
Ulbricht has made game management mistakes all season long. He admitted as much after the Week 17 loss to the Buffalo Bills. In the post-game press conference, he was asked to comment on Rodgers’ performance. His answer was shocking:
“Honestly, I didn’t see a lot of offense,” Ulbrich said. In the first two-plus quarters, “I made a lot of defensive adjustments.” At that point, the Jets trailed 40-0.
Ulbricht did not relinquish his defensive coordinator duties because he felt it was important to maintain continuity, especially after his decision to demote Nathaniel Hackett and move Todd Downing to serve as the playmaker on offense. . He believes that too much change can be counterproductive.
Looking back, Ulbricht acknowledged the difficulty of the dual role, saying, “If I could have done it perfectly in my vision for the future, I wouldn’t be the coordinator and the head coach.”
No player blamed Ulbrich for the team’s woes. If anything, they expressed sympathy. As one player put it, “He got stuck in without any warning when we were in the No. 1 game” — referring to their Week 6 game against the Bills.
They have 12 games to regroup after Saleh was fired, which should be plenty of time for an experienced team with Rodgers at quarterback. That didn’t happen, and the Jets lost their first three games under Ubrich, including an inexplicable 25-22 loss to the 4-13 Patriots.
“A dark moment,” Ulbricht said at the time.
This moment lasted for another two months.
the jets are A lack of discipline doomed them; their 137 penalties were the highest by any team this century. In fact, their total exceeds the Jets’ total in 1996 (110). No team wants to be compared to that ’96 team, which went 1-15 and is a historically useless reference point. The current Jets are very penalty-prone, having been flagged six times in five minutes.
“We did a lot of things in the right way off the field, but just like a team on the field, I don’t think we were really able to come together as a complete team,” Oliver said. “The cohesion of the whole team It doesn’t exist. It’s just out of place.”
Another player said: “Big names and talent are no guarantee of winning. We are Exhibit A.”
There’s no bigger name than Rodgers, who’s averaging 254 passing yards over the past five games — a glimpse of what Rodgers has done well in his 18 seasons with the Green Bay Packers. Unfortunately for the Jets, they were already eliminated by then, so his final flurry was little more than whipped cream on top of a melted sundae.
“He’s a unicorn no matter what, and he’s got a lot more to do,” said Adams, ever loyal to his favorite quarterback.
Rodgers started every game and despite a leg injury he just didn’t have enough magic to keep his team respected. There’s surprise within the organization that he hasn’t done a better job of handling adversity in games. If something went wrong, he would sometimes sit alone on the bench, either fretting or wondering why those around him weren’t performing at a higher level. One team source speculated that some of the younger players may have been intimidated by Rodgers.
The coaches catered the offense to Rodgers. He completed 584 pass attempts, ranking second in the league, and set a franchise record with 640 return passes. They are the most pass-happy team inside the 20-yard line, which may explain why they rank 21st in red zone efficiency.
At times, Hall seemed like an afterthought, which heightened his frustration. Inexplicably, he has never completed 20 possessions in a game. If Rodgers is near the end zone, he’s throwing; if he’s near the end zone, he’s throwing. Eleven of his 28 touchdowns were of 5 yards or less.
One player speculated that Downing was calling plays so Rodgers could reach 500 career touchdown passes (which he did in his final game). Rodgers heard the pass and the run, though one player insisted it wasn’t as frequent as it seemed.
construction of jet aircraft This team relies on older players at key positions, quarterback Rodgers (41 years old), left tackle Smith (34 years old) and middle linebacker C.J. Mosley (32 years old). Potential downsides: Injuries.
Sure enough, Smith and Mosley — both with neck injuries — missed a combined 20 games. Jamion Sherwood replaced Mosley and was voted the team MVP by his teammates, but Mosley’s leadership on the court was missed.
Several players said Mosley’s absence was one of the keys to the decline of a once-powerful defense. The Jets rank 17th in defensive efficiency, down from third in 2023, according to ESPN Analytics.
“Despite this season, we never collapsed or collapsed like some people said, never checked out,” Reid said, alluding to comments made by cornerback Sauce Gardner after the Week 17 loss.
Woody Johnson praised the team for not giving up after a late-season win over the Miami Dolphins. Deep down he was deeply disappointed with the season, saying: “Everyone thought it was going to be unbelievable.”
But the production fell far short of the hype. Douglas added several high-profile players, including Smith, wide receiver Mike Williams, pass rusher Haason Reddick and Adams, who arrived in an October trade.
Their total compensation in 2024: more than $37 million.
The only player who has lived up to expectations is Adams, who has 854 receiving yards and seven touchdowns in 11 games. Williams lost his explosiveness, faded from the offense and was traded to the Pittsburgh Steelers. A team source said Redick missed seven games because of the holdout and was out of shape. He has a sack.
Great reputation, low production.
Redick’s boycott was a dark cloud hanging over the organization from April through October. The Jets traded a 2026 third-round pick for one of the league’s most prolific pass rushers, believing he would be an upgrade over the departed Bryce Huff. Things quickly became chaotic. Redick wanted a new contract, refused to report and hand over more than $6 million in game checks, and ended up showing up in mid-October with the same base contract he wanted to tear up.
The Jets felt his absence, especially after Week 2, when edge rusher Jermaine Johnson suffered a season-ending Achilles tear. The pass rush weakened, forcing Ulbricht to blitz more than usual. Redick did little on the field (nine solo tackles in 393 snaps) and refused to be interviewed, at one point scolding a reporter for being critical of his persistence. One player said of Redick: “It’s like he’s not even on the team.”
Yet Redick ended up making $9.5 million — about $1 million per tackle.
Despite the odds, Ulbricht rolled out the same lineup every week, even going out of his way to praise players like Redick and defensive end Michael Clemons — both targets of fan anxiety. The message from Ulbricht was odd, as he had only one player on the bench all season: safety Tony Adams.
Soon, the Jets will have a new coach and general manager, with the hope that a new leadership team can end the longest active playoff drought (14 seasons) in major North American sports. This culture needs an overhaul.
“Every floor of the building is important,” Adams said. “You can win games but it’s another thing to be able to build a winning culture. You need players’ support and you need a coach who can come in here and win players’ support and hold everyone accountable so that you It can go back to that old-school feeling of players and coaches holding the team accountable and getting the best out of the team.”
