Gang Green Nation
As a franchise, the future looks exciting for the New York Jets. The 2026 offseason should be fun. The team will have abundant cap space and four picks in the top two rounds of the NFL Draft to improve. A little further over the horizon is the 2027 NFL Draft, where the Jets have three first round picks.
There’s plenty to make Jets fans hopeful.
Before we get to that, there is the matter of finishing out the 2025 season. That will be a far less pleasant task. A team that began the season short on talent already traded two of its three best players in order to stockpile those resources. The only of those top three players to not be traded, Garrett Wilson, is currently out with an injury.
The Jets’ 23-10 loss to the Baltimore Ravens in Week 12 is a stark reminder of how difficult the present is for this team.
This was not a game the Ravens dominated thoroughly. It isn’t a game in which Baltimore played particularly well. During the week, Lamar Jackson’s status was discussed frequently. Jackson missed practice on Wednesday with an ankle injury. This came in a season where he already has battled knee and hamstring ailments. Jackson did not look like himself. He seemed reluctant to run and lacking the extra gear he normally has.
The Baltimore offense was out of sync for much of the game. Part of the credit for that belongs to the Jets defense, which played a particularly strong first half. Part of the blame goes to the Ravens just not executing at a high level.
In the end, this didn’t matter. The Jets just weren’t talented enough to overcome mistakes. They started on the first drive of the second half. On a third down play when the Jets could have gotten off the field, Isaiah Oliver committed pass interference on a pass intended for Mark Andrews. Oliver appeared to be in good enough position to prevent the completion without committing a penalty. Baltimore gained 37 yards from the flag and later converted the drive into a go ahead touchdown.
On the ensuring drive, the Jets faced a fourth and two from their own 42. Aaron Glenn curiously decided to go for it. I know analytics suggest teams should be more aggressive than conventional wisdom suggests on fourth down decisions. I’m all for analytics driving decisions. But in this case I find it tough to understand how the Jets decided to go for it. The Jets offense had struggled all game. It was going to be difficult to covert, and failure would set the Ravens up on a short field at a point it felt the game was slipping away from the Jets. Even worse, the Jets didn’t have their one above average skill player, Breece Hall, even on the field. The play failed. The Ravens got their short field.
The ensuing drive resulted in a touchdown aided by another third down pass interference. It came when...
