The most disappointing part of Jets' letdown against 49ers
SANTA CLARA, Calif — The Jets dropped their opener 32-19 to the 49ers on Monday night. The team is now 0-1 for the fifth time in six years. Here are some thoughts and observations from the game:
1. I don’t think anyone is overreacting to this loss from what I’ve seen postgame and early Tuesday morning. Jets fans understand who the 49ers are and that the Jets lost to a very good team. This game gave you no reason to believe the Jets still are not capable of winning 10 games this season.
Here is the disappointing part: this was a chance for the Jets to make a statement that they truly are among the NFL’s best. Everyone has been praising this roster for months and some people are predicting a Super Bowl appearance for this team. They did not look like they were in that class on Monday night.
Even if this game had been close, I think you would be feeling like the Jets had arrived in the top tier of the NFL. Now, there are still questions — not whether they can still be good, but how good. There is a difference between predicting them to sneak into the playoffs and picking them to play or win the Super Bowl. The Jets still have a long way to go, in my eyes, to be put in the class of the 49ers, Chiefs and Ravens.
The schedule changes for the Jets now. Instead of a tough test, they now get three straight games where the expectation is they are not tested. The Jets defense had a bad night Monday. They should get better quickly against these three opponents. The Titans scored 17 points against the Bears in Week 1 and quarterback Will Levis looked bad. The Patriots pulled off an upset in Cincinnati but scored only 16 points. The Broncos are starting rookie Bo Nix at quarterback and scored 20 points against the Seahawks.
It’s now time for the Jets to beat up on lesser opponents. If they don’t, then there will be bigger questions than where they fit in the NFL hierarchy.
2. The knee-jerk reaction to Monday’s loss is the Jets really need Haason Reddick, who remains a holdout. I did not really see it that way. Reddick is a one-trick pony. He is very good at that one trick but he is solely a pass rusher. The Jets’ issue on Monday night was not their pass rush. It was their leaky run defense. They failed to set the edge and did not do a great job tackling.
The player the Jets missed Monday is not Reddick. It is John Franklin-Myers, who quietly was a tone-setter for this defensive line. The Jets traded Franklin-Myers to the Broncos after they acquired Reddick. They felt they could not keep both high salaries on the team.
This is where the Reddick trade is really killing them. I’d argue that Franklin-Myers would have helped them more against the 49ers than Reddick.
I do think the Jets defense will look much better when they are not facing Kyle Shanahan, Brock Purdy, Deebo Samuel, etc. but the run defense is going to be something to watch.
3. My review of Aaron Rodgers’ 2024 debut: pretty good. It was not spectacular and he definitely missed some throws, including the one that was intercepted. But, overall, Rodgers showed flashes of his old self. His touchdown pass was vintage Rodgers, drawing the defense offsides and then throwing it deep to Allen Lazard.
There was no point in the game where I felt like he looked immobile, but he did not have to move that much. The truth is everything about the Jets offense was tough to evaluate because they only had 49 plays. I did not walk away from this game feeling better or worse about Rodgers. I do expect magic from him and that was not there Monday night, but that might be unreasonable to expect in his first full game in 20 months.
4. Coaches always stress the possessions right before halftime and right after halftime as critical in the game and it certainly was Monday night. The 49ers held the ball for 12 minutes, 30 seconds in the two drives that sandwiched halftime. They scored 10 points on the drives and essentially knocked the Jets out of the game. The Jets offense was helpless on the sideline, waiting to get the ball back and they just kept waiting.
The 49ers had four drives of 11 plays or more. It is hard to win if you let the other team hold the ball that long. The Jets defense could not get off the field and the Jets offense did not have many opportunities. This is the reverse of complementary football.
Again, like I said above, I think this will be corrected as the Jets enter the JV portion of their schedule. They might not play a better team all season than the one they saw Monday night.
Revealing statThe Jets had the ball for a total of 6:21 out of 30 minutes in the second and third quarters combined.
Surprising snap countWe knew WR Mike Williams would have a limited role in his first game back from an ACL injury, but this limited? He played only nine snaps in the game.
Game ballThere was not a lot of good in this game for the Jets, but WR Allen Lazard had six catches for 89 yards and two touchdowns. He did have a third-down drop on the first series, but this was still a nice rebound game for Lazard after a tough first season with the Jets.
