Unwanted records.
Aaron Glenn and his New York Jets made history on Sunday, but not in a good way.
The humbling 37-22 loss to the Dallas Cowboys set several franchise and NFL records.
Let us have a look at some of these undesirable achievements.
Glenn out on his own
I cannot imagine New York Jets head coach Aaron Glenn thought he would be winless heading to the game with Denver in London, but here they are.
After a bright start against the Pittsburgh Steelers, they have basically not competed until garbage time in the subsequent matches.
The latest embarrassment made the former Lions defensive coordinator the first Jets coach to lose his first five games.
Yes, that is right folks. Even Adam Gase managed to grab at least one victory in the opening five weeks of the season.
We are not into one-and-done territory yet with this staff, nor should we be, but they are treading a fine line. Whatever the message is, it does not seem to be landing with this group.
Maybe that speaks to their complete lack of talent in most departments. Maybe it is the coaches’ inability to raise their performance levels.
There are teams with “less talent” winning games, so what is the issue at Florham Park? Unless the Jets show some incremental progress in the remaining months, the calls for change will grow louder and louder.
Defense, optional
There are a lot of words I could use to describe this current iteration of the Jets defense. For now, I will stick to the PG script.
This group is soft, entitled and gutless. I am tired of talking about the missed tackles. Of course, the Jets missed double digit tackles, again.
Javonte Williams ripped off a long run at the end of the second half, which was one of the more downright mortifying plays I have ever witnessed. Frankly, the players gave up; they quit.
They were playing a Cowboys offensive line missing four starters, yet generated just nine pressures and one sack. The secondary was abused by a receiver I was not even sure was a real person until the commentary team said his name.
Speaking of the secondary, Sauce Gardner looks a completely different player to the one we saw dominate in his first two seasons. He was beaten by George Pickens twice, one a huge touchdown catch. On a previous third down, the Jets sent pressure and Pickens just flat out beat ‘Sauce’ on a slant, when the former All-Pro was left one-on-one with the Cowboys wideout.
Now when you are paying a corner the money the Jets are paying Gardner, he needs to make both of those plays. The Jets have very little talent on defense and what talent they have just is not showing up.
Anyway, they can at least claim to be the first side since 1933 not to generate a turnover in through five games. A record that has stood since The Great Depression, that is just life for New York Jets fans these days.
Jury still out on Fields
The box score was again very kind to Justin Fields with 283 yards passing, two touchdowns and no picks. But much like in Miami, the majority of these numbers were put up when the game was out of reach.
But when it really mattered, Fields held the ball too long. He took big sacks and did not process his reads well.
A reminder: prior to Sunday, this Cowboys defense was on pace to be the worst in NFL history. They had five sacks all season, and matched that total with five on Sunday.
The opening script was pretty perfect again. They ran the ball extremely well and got down to the 3-yard line, but could not punch it in and settled for three.
Then, another fumble in the red zone effectively ended the game as a contest as Dallas scored twice before the end of the half.
These are not all Fields’ problems, but he is the signal caller. Teams live and die by their quarterback.
Sunday saw Fields record move to 0-26 when his team concedes 21 or more points. A staggering statistic.
I love Fields the athlete and he still makes those wow plays that few others can. But I do not think he will be steering the ship in 2026.
