The Worst Franchise to Ever Do it (My Lifetime)

The Story of the New York Jets through the lens of a fan who started watching the NFL seriously in 2009 (I am 22 years old for reference)

The year is 2009. The New York Jets are one year removed from Brett Favre’s first NFL farewell prior to his improbable return a few years later in Minnesota. The Jets don’t have a quarterback to steady the ship and decide that they must take a swing at the position in the 2009 NFL Draft. The only guy sitting in front of them after Matthew Stafford got scooped up with the first pick is a massive question mark. At pick 5 the New York Jets opt in and decide to pull the trigger on USC’s Mark Sanchez. He was coming off a Rose Bowl Victory and a stellar season for the Trojans in his Junior year. A season where he notably led his conference, the Pac-10, in every major statistical category at QB. The main issue with him was that he had a one year sample size in college, that’s it. The Jets did just go 9-7 in 2008 and with the emergence of Darelle Revis at cornerback anything was possible. He debatably had the greatest defensive player prime in the history of the NFL. Revis would go on to shut down the best offensive weapons the league has ever seen every single week carrying this Jets team as far as he could in the first two seasons of Mark Sanchez’s career. Sanchez played mediocre ball, but the team reached the AFC Championship in back to back years. The first appearance was on a Cinderella run from the Wild Card and the second came from a Jets regular season that was the best in the entirety of my lifetime, an 11-5 run. What seemed like a bright future would be one filled with calamity and unrest in the organization.

Following this two year span of sputtering offenses with an elite defense that took the team far, Sanchez would fizzle out. His first two years seemed like a glimmer of hope, but after a rapid and unforeseen ascent, the organization fell back down to Earth. The next two years he would constantly turnover the football with costly interceptions and fumbles that forced him out of New York after just four seasons. The team looked to the Draft once again to find their franchise guy in 2013. One name that stuck out in the field was Geno Smith. A guy that seemed like a surefire 1st round pick fell out of favor with many teams due to his lackluster draft process and late season decline as a West Virginia Mountaineer. At pick 39 the team took him early in the 2nd round and the rest was history. Not quite. He looked lost in New York with a Head Coach that knew only defense, Rex Ryan, and no weapons to help him out; he was destined for failure. The only player he had during his Jets tenure was Eric Decker. So he led the team to an 8-8 record as a rookie and a 4-12 record as a sophomore. For even more context his running backs were Bilal Powell and Chris Ivory (before his career year). He had nothing there when you look at it once again in hindsight. After yet another swing and miss at quarterback, the Jets realized how poorly constructed the team’s offense was ahead of the 2015 season. The two acquisitions they would make would change the entire culture of the organization. For a single season.

First off they acquired Ryan Fitzpatrick from Houston for a conditional 7th round pick. Essentially a bag of candy. The journeyman QB, Ryan Fitzpatrick, did what he occasionally would do throughout his plentiful pit stops over the course of his career in 2015. He looked like a Hall of Famer for about half the games this season, a good QB in a couple of games, and then just not good at season’s end. Next came star wide receiver Brandon Marshall. After a year of frustration in Chicago he would ignite the Jets passing game, having the best Jets receiving season in franchise history. He put up an incredible personal season at 31 years old to the tune of 1,502 receiving yards. Pairing that with Eric Decker’s steady play as a receiver and Chris Ivory’s legacy year at running back and the team was set to get into the playoffs. Alongside their stout defense it seemed like a foregone conclusion, but the team fell a game short after losing a 10-6 contest against the Bills. With the Steelers winning their last game the Jets were officially bounced from the playoffs. An unforeseen 10-6 record with a first year head coach, Todd Bowles, gave hope for the organization, but was a tough pill to swallow. The next year (2016) Ryan Fitzpatrick had run out of all his magic so he too was forced out of town after leading the team to a 5-11 record. The team would tank for the 2017 season with Josh McCown at the helm in an attempt to reload at the position in the 2018 Draft. Now the team finally had their sight set on THE guy who was set to take them to the top of the AFC East, Sam Darnold. With the third pick they went back to the USC quarterback well one more time.

Like a broken record the organization did what they do best. They formed a team with no offensive line, a culmination of washed Le'Veon Bell, Bilal Powell, and Frank Gore at running back, and had the worst receivers imaginable for Darnold’s three years in New York. It was to the point Darnold got scared of the game and seemed like he might be done for good at just 23 years of age. I’d quit too if you put me on the field with running backs that couldn’t run a sub 4.6 second forty yard dash. Or if my receiving threats to look for included the likes of Quincy Enunwa, Jamison Crowder, and best of all Robbie Chosen. Formerly known as Robby Anderson, and Chosen Anderson. He had a brief stint of being solid, but the guy never surpassed 1,000 yards and was Darnold’s best option on the team. The media decided to blast Darnold for being terrible when he didn’t even have a fighting chance roster wise. The Jets front office and their shortcomings could have an entire documentary made about it. Accompanying this suspect roster was Adam Gase at Head Coach. Darnold’s Head coach for his last two of his three years in New York. The backstory behind this guy made him the perfect eye candy for the Jets and their front office.

Adam Gase was a coach that had little to no offensive mind, but was hyped up to be a genius after Peyton Manning went on his mythical run back in 2013. Manning broke every regular season passing record in Denver while Gase was his offensive coordinator creating buzz around the coach’s name. He’d go on to be the offensive coordinator for the Bears after his lone season of being carried by Peyton Manning and then would have an incredibly mediocre tenure in Miami as their Head Coach from 2016-18. His time in New York from 2019-2020 was an absolute abomination to put it lightly. It resulted in Darnold being cast away as an afterthought while having no developmental help whatsoever in his young career. The offense that the team marched out in 2020 was so unbelievably uncompetitive. An average football fan during the time didn’t even bother to tune into their games. Jamison Crowder at WR1, Denzel Mims at WR2, and Breshad Perriman at WR3, and a 39 year old Frank Gore at running back who averaged 3.5 yards per attempt as the team’s lead guy in the run game is criminal. At this point the team had once again made the decision they must tank for a replacement because Darnold led the stagnant offensive attack to a 2-14 record in 2020. Now it was time to look ahead towards the 2021 NFL Draft.

This time is when it was official that the Jets were just the worst franchise in all of sports. After watching BYU’s pro day with all of the organization’s eyes on their young QB Zach Wilson, the Jets would fall for a trap. In his pro day Zach Wilson would show off his cannon for an arm uncorking a missile while rolling to his left as a righty. The ball came out a spiral and nearly touched the roof of the dome enclosure the scouts were in. It then fell back down directly into his intended target's arms. It was all over ESPN and the Jets were quite intrigued. When the 2021 Draft began the first pick saw Trevor Lawrence who was the next Peyton Manning head to Duvall to play for the Jaguars. The Jets at pick 2 quickly took their guy, Zach Wilson. Ironically in a class that was supposed to be good for QBs it was really the other early picks that had the largest implications on the NFL’s future. Jamarr Chase, Penei Sewell and others headlined the 2021 Draft. New Head Coach Robert Saleh seemed poised to bring the team back to relevancy. His defensive scheme he put into place in San Francisco was an unstoppable brute force. The only issue was that his QB Zach Wilson had nobody to mentor him and also was raw as a prospect. This didn’t help his small frame and below average intangibles at the position and when you put that concoction onto the field alongside a garbage offensive line and no receiving core yet again, you are expecting to lose games. Wilson went 4-13 as a Rookie and didn’t show many signs of being a budding talent. 

The next two years would once again be rough for Zach Wilson, but in the weirdest ways imaginable. The Jets teams that marched out onto the field in 2022 and 2023 were some of the worst offenses to watch. The team couldn’t even execute a screen pass half the time with Breece Hall being their only legitimate threat out of the backfield. Hall would have explosive plays, but most of the time they’d get called back for blatant holding penalties sometimes on the other side of the field of the running back. Zach Wilson though is almost impossible to talk about to anyone who didn’t seriously watch him play. He was too small, wasn’t overly athletic, and was just pitiful behind a bad offensive line. The issue of having a bad offensive line was something he never dealt with at BYU. Despite significant offensive struggles cementing the unit amidst the bottom feeders in offensive output, their defense looked otherworldly. Time and time again the unit would have their backs against the wall and make incredible plays at all three levels of their defense. This led the team to look for some competition at the Quarterback position as the front office thought the team easily was a contender. No offensive line in place, the team immediately looked towards one of the greatest QBs to ever play the position, Aaron Rodgers. He just came off his worst year in his career in Green Bay where he just didn’t seem to have the same magic he used to in his prime. Does he have gas left in the tank? At least he gets to mentor Zach Wilson. Right?

Wrong. Aaron Rodgers tore his Achilles in the first few snaps of his new tenure. The injury forced him directly onto a cart and out for the entirety of the 2023 NFL season in the first game of the year. Then Zach Wilson was thrown into the fire against the Buffalo Bills in primetime and delivered the Jets a 22-16 victory. Fast forward to week 4 after two lackluster performances and he barely lost a primetime matchup against the Chiefs. The Jets had three to five of the biggest calls of the game go against them. Including a defensive holding play at the end of the game that was thrown well after the Jets intercepted the football on Chiefs receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling. It was pretty obvious that penalties were the only reason the Chiefs were in the game to begin with. The team though would go on to win their next two games where they massacred the Broncos with Breece Hall on the road and completely neutralized the Eagles with a shutdown defensive performance in a home game. Then came their bye week and another overtime win against the Giants. Defense looking spectacular, Zach Wilson looking serviceable on occasion, and Breece Hall ready to take a leap the Jets were sitting at 4-3 (Easily should’ve been 5-2). Was it finally time for the Jets to weasel into the playoffs for the first time since 2010? Finally there might have been hope.

Then there was complete despair for any Jets fan. Zach Wilson, Tim Boyle, and company at quarterback would lead the most heinous show on turf handing the squadron five straight losses. Five straight contests of scoring under fourteen points, three of which not even surpassing eight points. They even won the Giants game a week prior to the skid without eclipsing thirteen points. It was hard to watch especially when Tim Boyle came in to play quarterback. It somehow looked more like a Pop Warner style of play with Boyle at quarterback than it did with Wilson. Screen passes that never achieved anything, short passes consistently batted down, runs going for two yards, an endless supply of penalty flags, many sacks, and inaccurate intermediate passes became the staples of the Jets offensive attack. There’s only one thing comparable to this offense and that is when Big Ben played his last season in the NFL and dumped the ball off to Najee Harris every single play. Breece Hall was the only beacon of light all season for the team and he was peppered with targets all year. This team also would go on to smack the Texans later in the season, which was reasonably surprising considering the run the Texans went on in 2023. They finished with a 7-10 record. And then came Rodgers and his dream return to gridiron glory!

The eccentric QB Aaron Rodgers would document his entire journey back to playing football again in 2024. He had talked with the front office of the Jets and assembled the team the year prior when he was forced to miss time. He was ready to come back and write a storybook ending to his illustrious career. The first few games got off to a little bit of a rough start to say the least. The team couldn’t move the football, Rodgers couldn’t move, and it had become clear that the offense was doomed behind a pretty porous offensive line. Rodgers and Coach Saleh had some beef between each other and it was quite obvious. Back in the spring he talked about Rodgers reintegrating with the team and described the former league MVP’s play as a process and that there were moments where Aaron Rodgers would look like his vintage self. Well, Rodgers and his notorious ego took exception to that comment. He very clearly disliked Saleh from the jump. When the team started 2-1 and Saleh tried to embrace him Rodgers wanted no part of it whatsoever. It was directly on the camera during primetime. The next two weeks the Jets offense would bottom out in epic fashion. It started with a 10-9 loss against the Broncos at home in one of the worst regular season contests in NFL history. This game their offense was putrid and they punted nearly every single possession. Despite the foul play on the field the team easily could’ve won the contest if their kicker wasn’t 2024 Greg Zeurlein who missed seemingly every critical kick this season at the beginning of the Jets year. He cost them the contest and then next week in London against the Vikings Rodgers would wet the bed. He was consistently taking sacks and threw a backbreaking 63 yard pick six to Andrew Van Ginkel later in the contest. After this game with no explanation the Jets owner fired Robert Saleh and escorted him out of the facility with their security. Why did he get the cold shoulder?

Well one speculation that is most likely true was a clear problem from the get go. The Jets were once again terrible on offense. Rodgers was supposed to be the guy that brought them to just an average level and the guy to make plays when they absolutely needed him to do so. When he came to New York the keys were placed directly in his pocket. Aaron cherry picked an old offensive coordinator of his to assemble the new look Jets offense prior to going down in 2023, Nathaniel Hackett. Hackett was an offensive coordinator for Rodgers back in his glory days in Green Bay, so Rodgers steered the organization directly to him for offensive play calling duties. One issue with Hackett is that he just came over from Denver after arguably having the worst one and done head coaching season in the NFL’s history. His ability to run the Jets offense directly into the ground was innate. It was quite obvious what the team needed to do and Saleh let them know that he’d like to make a change when it came to offensive play calling duties and Nathaniel Hackett being at the helm. He was denied, randomly blindsided with his firing, and just a few weeks later the team would relieve Hackett of his play calling duties. So at 2-3 the organization fired Saleh due to the offense being bad, which he had no part of. He still led a stout defense until his early departure from the team and once he left the unit would fall off a cliff. The Jets record ended up being 5-12. Rodgers kicked him out of New York. So what’s next for NY?

The Jets approach this offseason looking to address their many flaws in how their team is constructed. The front office just hired former Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn to lead the new look New York Jets. He formerly played for the team and is one of the player’s favorite coaches to play for, but what is the reasoning for this sequence of events? You just fired a defensive guru to replace him with a lesser defensive coordinator. It’s that cut and dry. Glenn calls press man coverage all day, puts his cornerbacks on an island, fits the secondary to shut down the run game on the edge, and shows where his blitzes are coming from EVERY TIME. As a diehard Lions fan Glenn tips his play calls every single play. There’s no variance or exotic blitz packages he puts together and it’s quite redundant to watch his blitzes get picked up and torched in big moments by opposing offensive lines. During his four years he led the Lions defense to rankings of 20th, 23rd, 28th, and 31st overall in the NFL of the 32 teams in the league. The Jets hired a worse defensive mind than Saleh for a team with no offensive identity. As soon as I saw the news as a Lions fan I just knew the Jets were set to repeat the cycle. What’s next? Captain Kirk trade to accompany the new defensive minded Head Coach? At this point the Jets hiring a defensive head coach and scouring the market for a fossilized flamethrower quarterback entering his forties is a canon event. For all Jets fans out there if you made it through this time period alongside myself can I get one. J-E-T-S! JETS! JETS! JETS!