Season Defining Game

Edition #540

Good morning!

Just wanted to send a quick newsletter this morning to act as a weekend discussion piece. I’ve returned from Amsterdam in one piece, but travelling with two young kids sure is tiring. So I’m going to be playing catchup this weekend.

Fortunately, we haven’t missed too much in the world of the New York Jets.

Let’s just kick things off with the injury report for Sunday’s game against Miami:

No huge surprises in there, the expectation is that Tippmann, Michell, JFM, McDonald and Bawden will be good to go. It’s a shame that Brownlee picked up an injury just as he was starting to gain some reps, but unfortunately, that’s just one of those things.

Aaron Rodgers ramped up his rehab this week and practised on back-to-back days, we’re starting to see comments like “he looks normal” come out of 1JD and there is a very real chance he’s available next Sunday. But for that to happen we need to be in the playoff hunt.

Right now ESPN odds have our playoff chance at 2%, beating Miami would significantly increase that, but we haven’t won an away divisional game since 2019 (a 13-6 win in Buffalo), and they haven’t beaten Miami in Miami since 2015.

Yesterday there was a report that Aaron Rodgers made a leaping interception while playing scout team defence… while it’s impressive that he’s able to do that, I have to question why your prized asset who’s recovering from a torn Achilles is out there jumping in the air on scout team defence. Had he suffered a setback as a result, the Jets would have been annihilated in the media. I’m sure it was a glorified walkthrough, but still.

Congratulations to Zach Wilson for winning the AFC Offensive Player of the Week award for his performance against Houston.

Now comes the big test, can he stack performances? We have historically seen flashes of brilliance from Zach, but I’d argue that his performance against Houston was his most consistent for four quarters. Now can he replicate that against a defence that’s there for the taking?

Interestingly Nathaniel Hackett confirmed that the Jets coming out and throwing 10 straight times after HT wasn't by design, so basically the thing that jumpstarted the Jets’ offence and resulted in their best half of offensive football in years was not masterminded by the offensive coordinator at the break, instead, he kind of fell into it.

Just when I start feeling confident the Jets may have cracked the 21st-century passing game concept, I listen to Nate and I’m back to thinking we’ll see plenty of runs up the middle on first down this week. Maybe once the Jets fall behind he’ll be forced to throw again and maybe it works again and maybe he realises that he should maybe mix things up. That’s a lot of maybes.

We know the Miami offence is lethal, and the Jet’s defence is going to have to be. at the top of their game for 60 minutes, but let’s just check back in on that Miami defence.

Opponent Red Zone TD%: 65.85% (27th)
Opponent Points per Game: 22.6 (21st)
Opponent third down conversion %: 36.69% (8th)

Interestingly the Dolphins play tough…until opponents get into their red zone. They have a top 10 unit in terms of yards allowed and third down conversion, but they have one of the worst red-zone defences in football and their points allowed is bottom 3rd.

If the Jets’ defence can force some turnovers and create short fields for the offence, good things happen. Although saying that, the Jets forced Tua into two interceptions and recovered a lost fumble at Metlife and still lost the game 34-13.

If the Jets can somehow win this game, they then have the Commanders who are awful, the Joe Flacco-led Browns and the Bailey Zappe-led Patriots. I mean it may be a 2% chance, but win on Sunday and something magical may just happen.