For all the smiley-face emojis applied to the coverage of the Jets loss to the Steelers, you started to think they should be pasted on the sides of the helmets the way they used to do that with buckeyes when Justin Fields and Garrett Wilson were lighting things up at Ohio State.
Were there positives, even with a home game the Jets should have won? There were, starting with Fields, who gave Jets fans as much as they could have hoped for in his first start, even if it wasn’t enough in the end.
Still: You know what this game really was, even with a new coach and a new quarterback and a brand new outlook? It was like so many games the Jets lost last season, one after another until they missed the playoffs again. It was just a younger quarterback not making the plays he needed to make the way the old guy now playing quarterback for the Steelers kept coming up short in close games a year ago. And it was a new — and improved? — defense not getting nearly enough stops, even if it did force the 60-yard field goal that won it for the Steelers.
You know how many times last season the Jets gave up more than the 34 points they gave up to Aaron Rodgers and the Steelers? Twice. Once against last year’s Steelers, when Russell Wilson — whatever happened to him? — was QB1 in Pittsburgh. The other time was in Buffalo at the end of December, when Josh Allen and the Bills rang them up for 40. That was it.
This isn’t in any way to suggest that we’re going to see the Same Old Jets over the rest of this season. It’s just that last Sunday at MetLife kind of was. A year ago, the Jets lost a franchise-record six games in which they held a fourth-quarter lead. Of their 12 losses last year, seven of them were decided by six points or less. Starting to sound familiar? It didn’t matter whether it was good teams or bad teams they were playing or even teams as mediocre as the Jets were, the Jets almost always gave the other team a game, here and abroad.
Then most of the time they would lose the way they did on Sunday. As exciting as last Sunday’s game was, as much promise as Fields showed, they did end up losing the kind of game they were losing when Robert Saleh and Jeff Ulbrich was the HC of the NYJ. Maybe they will do something against the Bills on Sunday, as they try not to start out 0-2 — with a road game against the Bucs after that — that will inspire the fans who stayed away from MetLife last Sunday, and let Steelers fans have the run of the place, come running back.
Listen: I want Justin Fields to do well the rest of the way, not simply go toe-to-toe with the former guy the way he did in the opener. I like just about everything Aaron Glenn has said and done since getting the job, and that includes showing Rodgers the door. It’s not just that the Jets needed to move on with somebody like Glenn. They absolutely needed to move on from Rodgers, even if they didn’t shut him up — it’s easier becoming a Navy SEAL than doing that — when they had a golden opportunity last Sunday.
Now they need to show that things are different as opposed to just saying they are. Can they beat the Bills at home this coming Sunday? They’ve done it two of the last three years. Could they go down to Tampa against another old friend, Todd Bowles, and get a game off a legit Super Bowl contender from the NFC like the Bucs? Why not?
But what they can’t do, this early into the new era of good feelings, is be 0-3 when they get the Miami Popsicles at the end of the month.
“I want to move in silence, man, and just go about our business to go win some games,” Glenn said back in March, and good for him.
Did Glenn’s team have some bad luck on Sunday? It did, especially when D.K. Metcalf was practically Franco Harris-ing them after collecting that bobbled pass on the Steelers last drive. Xavier Gipson’s fumble on that kickoff return was a crusher, without question. And, let’s face it, Glenn himself did them no favors by going for a two-point conversion — in the first quarter — when a penalty moved the ball to the 1-yard line.
The Jets didn’t get the two points, and ended up chasing the point they passed up all the way until they lost by two when Chris Boswell kicked one 60 yards that had enough length to be 70. Before long the Jets sure were moving in silence. Toward the locker room, at 0-1.
The Jets had a chance to close out this game. They didn’t, the way they didn’t close out games in what was such a mess of a 2024-25 season for them, one that ultimately cost them a general manager, two coaches, and Rodgers, whose handpicked offensive coordinator, Nathaniel Hackett, did so well he’s now a defensive analyst with the Packers.
Of course it was just one loss, the way it was just one loss for the Giants against the Commanders, even though this season looked a lot like last season for the Giants, too. But the Jets didn’t start over with a tough and admirable and skilled old Jet like Aaron Glenn, to simply grade themselves against the curve. Glenn has loftier ambitions than that. So do his players.
What the Jets need to do more than anything else is show up against the Bills, maybe the best team in the world. If they’re going to get loud, and make MetLife loud, what better opponent ¯ and what better moment — than this?
