Some people are fans of the New York Jets. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the New York Jets. This 2025 Defector NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.
Your team: THEY’RE A BRICK! HOUSE!/THEY’RE NEVER RIGHTY/THEY’RE LETTIN’ IT ALLLLL HANG OUT
Your 2024 record: 5-12, featuring a triumphant 2-1 start that included a win over the hated Patriots. That was a game that had people like me going, “Shit, maybe Aaron Rodgers still has it!” Now these are the Jets, so you know how this story ends. Only a World Trade Center building collapses in more spectacular fashion than this team did a year ago.
Allow me to chronicle the indignities. It all began to fall apart when Greg Zuerlein shanked the potential game-winning field goal in a loss to Denver, a game in which Broncos QB Bo Nix threw for 60 total yards. Owner Woody “Mr. Ambassador” Johnson reportedly suggested the team bench Rodgers after that loss, to which his coaches responded, But sir, it’s Aaron Rodgers! As if that name means anything to anyone outside of a Values Voter Summit anymore. Rodgers kept his job, flew with the team to London, and then blew the game by tossing a rookie-level pick-six directly to Minnesota edge rusher Andrew Van Ginkel.
That loss prompted Rodgers to have head coach Robert Saleh fired. Did things improve from there? Again, I refer you to the “Jets” name up in the headline of this post.
The rest of New York’s season was little more than shenanigans and foolishness. A twice-washed Russell Wilson annihilated them in his Steelers debut. Rodgers’s 97th career Hail Mary completion was rendered meaningless when Buffalo beat them anyway. They lost their rematch with New England (of course they did) when Pats RB Rhamondre Stevenson scored the game-winning TD in the final minute. They gave up touchdowns on four of Arizona’s first five drives in another loss, and THEN allowed Colts bust Anthony Richardson to engineer a game-winning touchdown drive against them. So don’t bother playing the “But at least their D is respectable!” card here, because nope. The Jets still need more pieces on that side of the ball. Like, say, former Jets DT Leonard Williams, seen here returning another Rodgers pick-six 92 yards to the house.
The average Jets fan couldn’t drive this far without stopping for an emergency Snickers bar.
By the way, the Jets traded for Davante Adams somewhere in the middle of all this. It didn’t matter. Remember when Michael Jordan played for the Wizards? That’s how things play out for any established NFL player who comes to the Jets. The inverse of this situation is also true, by the way. Leave the Jets, and suddenly the world is your absinthe party. Both Sam Darnold and Geno Smith left the Jets and went on to become Pro Bowl starters for playoff teams. Both beat New York a season ago. And you just saw how leaving the Jets helped Leonard Williams become the next Carl Lewis. Davante Adams is a Ram now. If you don’t think I’m gonna pick the Rams to win the NFC this season, you don’t know your Jets history.
You’re already tired from this season rundown. That was my goal, actually. I wanted you to feel just as disaffected as Jets fans do whenever their team’s season approaches its merciful conclusion. These people likely felt nothing when their team blew an eight-point lead to Miami and then lost in overtime, or when Buffalo crushed them in the rematch, or when edge rusher Haason Reddick held out right after the team had traded for him, or when GM Joe Douglas was fired by the organization in … November, I guess? It’s all a blur. And not a fun one, like when you’re driving drunk.
In the end, all this franchise had left were recriminations. Rodgers blamed everyone but himself. Fans blamed the owner. The owner blamed the players. And the rest of us blamed the now infamous Brick Johnson, son of the owner. Here’s your refresher on the story of Brick:
“When we’re discussing things, you’ll hear Woody cite something that Brick or Jack read online that’s being weighed equally against whatever opinion someone else in the department has,” said one Jets executive.
“I answer to a teenager,” Douglas quipped to people close to him before the season in an acknowledgment of the perceived power dynamic.
Rodgers is no longer here. Brick is. In fact, Brick will be the principal owner of the Jets years from now. The team’s concession stands will only accept BriqCoin as legal tender.
Your coach: Former Detroit defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn, who adds a veneer of respectability to the proceedings even though every Lions fan was dying for this man to be fired. Here’s how the Lions’ defense ranked in scoring under Glenn over the past four years: 31, 28, 23, 7. That same defense also gave up 45 points to a rookie QB in the divisional round just last season, ending Detroit’s miracle season before they even had a chance to blow it in more spectacular fashion.
And yes, I know that the Lions were operating with a skeleton crew on that side of the ball once January hit. But if you expect me to have any compassion for Glenn because of that, you’re reading the wrong preview. He fucked up, and now he’s gonna fuck up even more. Oh, and say hello to your new GM:
That’s Darren Mougey, who looks like a 3D-printed Kyle Shanahan. You guys are lucky that Jacksonville hired an even sillier looking middle schooler as their GM.
Norv Turner’s kid is also on Glenn’s staff now. Look anywhere around Florham Park and you’ll find someone’s asshole kid.
Your quarterback: Justin Fields, who played the best football of his life early last season and was then benched the instant that Mike Tomlin could plug Russell Wilson into his starting lineup. You know Fields’s deal by now. He can make cool plays with his feet and do basically nothing else. Oh, and he LOVES to be sacked. Just adores it. Justin Fields loves being sacked more than Fireman Ed likes jerking off to episodes of Yellowstone. Fields also dislocated a toe a few days ago, which means you’ll probably see backup Tyrod Taylor take snaps at some point in the very near future. Taylor has been in this league for 78 years. You may as well bring Bryce Petty out of retirement while you’re at it.
In other words, the Jets still need a quarterback. Think about how far Aaron Rodgers set them back in this effort. They could have drafted a QB before trading for Rodgers, and didn’t. They could have drafted one after Rodgers snapped his Achilles, and didn’t. They could have drafted a QB this offseason, but all of the prospects available to them were terrible. Three years of potential foundation-building, gone. All gone. Speaking of which…
What’s new that sucks: No more Rodgers. That’s the only thing you should be excited about here. The 2025 Jets won’t be good, but at least you won’t have to hear about it from Rodgers and Pat McAfee every Tuesday afternoon. The goal this time around is to be quietly shitty, like the big bro Giants. And you know what? I think the Jets can manage it.
That’s because they did nothing this offseason. They lost a whole army of name brand players over the spring (Rodgers, Adams, Reddick, CB DJ Reed, DT Javon Kinlaw, TE Tyler Conklin, RT Morgan Moses, DT Solomon Thomas, and LT Tyron Smith), and replaced those shiny parts with Fields and no one else. If you want to count WR Josh Reynolds and TE Stone Smartt as difference-making acquisitions, go right ahead. No one else will join you. Or maybe you’re excited because the team drafted T Armand Membou and TE Mason Taylor (son of Jason!) in the first two rounds of the draft. Again, your elation will prove short-lived. This team hasn’t had a decent offensive line since D’Brickashaw Ferguson and Nick Mangold were alive, and even then the team was a joke.
Or maybe you’re just happy that WR Garrett Wilson signed an extension when he should have pulled a Stefon Diggs. When your team is as crummy as the Jets, you find yourself rooting more for good stats than actual victories, so I guess Wilson now has you covered on that end. The team also extended CB Sauce Gardner, even though Sauce ranked 64th in DVOA a season ago, per FTN. In fact, I’d argue that DJ Reed was the better cover corner a year ago. But he’s gone now, because he has a brain in his head.
QB Jordan Travis retired after never playing a down.
What has always sucked: Your owner, of course. Ambassador Johnson got an F grade on the NFLPA’s report card this year, when even David Tepper managed a D-. That’s like losing a swim race to the corpse of Dennis Byrd. As long as things here are overseen by Woody and Brick (my favorite Hanna-Barbera cartoon!), this franchise will remain in a perpetual state of starting all over again. There is no future with this team, because there’s never one. It’s just one depantsing after another until Brick has your dad fired because his Madden rating was below 82.
This is why the few Jets fans I know are excited for Fields to be their QB, even though they know that he can’t read a defense. They’re just happy that they can go back to reasonable expectations, rather than hoping that the Jets will magically un-fuck themselves. If this team can make it 18 weeks without a single Buttfumble, Jets faithful will call it a success. Then they’ll go back home and fall asleep with a stray nacho hanging out of the corner of their mouth.
Breece Hall will never become legit until he leaves. Joe Namath was never good. This team hasn’t hasn’t had a good TE since Johnny Mitchell. Woody J has already spent $500 million lobbying for Zohran Mamdani to be kidnapped and thrown on a plane bound for Yemen.
What might not suck: That Quinnen Williams, man. He’s good. I hope he gets to play for another team someday.
HEAR IT FROM JETS FANS!
Andrew:
I hate this team. I hate myself.
Peggy:
My cousin asked me what I thought about the Jets chances this year, and I let out what was possibly the deepest and longest sigh of my entire life.
Jasper Wang:
Just this morning I received confirmation that Garrett Wilson still goes to the Lifetime Fitness in Florham Park, the gym where my mother does water aerobics. He goes there instead of to the Jets training facility, which I believe is in the same town.
Rob:
I am a lifelong Jets fan who is dating a Packers fan and is currently living in Pittsburgh. Aaron Rodgers is going to follow me to the fucking grave.
Lennon:
“Please stop talking about my team like they’re a Make-a-Wish kid.” – An actual thing I said to my wife while we watched the Jets play football.
Jordan:
Nothing on this team ever changes. We hired a defense-first coach again. Oh, and he’s a Bill Parcells disciple! Fuck off. I hate it here. At least Rodgers is gone.
Aaron (not Rodgers):
The ceiling for this team is to not be a clown show while being bad.
Thomas:
The fake spike didn’t break me. Rich Kottite didn’t break me. The napkin resignation didn’t break me. The first Patriots dynasty didn’t break me. Doug Brien missing field goals against the Steelers in a divisional playoff game didn’t break me. Mangini and Favre didn’t break me. Drafting Mark Sanchez didn’t break me. Woody saying Mitt Romney winning the Presidency was more important to him than the Jets making the playoffs didn’t break me. The Buttfumble didn’t break me. Geno Smith getting punched in the jaw didn’t break me. Fitztragic didn’t break me. Josh McCown winning too much in a tank season didn’t break me. Sam Darnold Monoghostcleosis didn’t break me. The “Mormon Mahomes” didn’t break me. Geno and Sam having career resurgences didn’t break me.
Aaron Rodgers becoming an absolute fraud and leaving this franchise in ashes probably won’t break me, but this is definitely the closest I’ve ever been.
Fuck my dad for letting me become a fan of this team. Love you, Dad!
Joshua:
My mom sadly died on New Years Eve 2024, at least she’s off to a better place, never having to deal with my ongoing bitching about this dogshit organization.
I still miss her a lot, love you mom.
Michael:
They’ve somehow hit on every first round pick since 2022 and they’re still projected to be a bottom-five team. There is no scenario in which things will get any better. Just further humiliation and grief until I grow the good sense to cut this vampiric entity out of my life once and for all.
David:
At least we’ll commit to Fields long enough to miss out picking a better QB in next year’s draft (I’m already seeing mock drafts with us taking linebackers or DTs in the top five next year, which tracks). I’ll send this same email again in three years when we hire Matt Eberflus or some shit.
Fuck Aaron Rodgers’ with his own COVID toes.
Scott:
In the last 30 years, the Jets have entered exactly two seasons with any sort of expectations. Both of those seasons ended in the first half of the first game with our quarterback tearing his Achilles.
Jamie:
I’m 40 years old, 300 pounds, trying to emerge from crippling debt, was dumped by an alcoholic who lives a thousand miles away, and haven’t gotten blown in two years. I think it’s safe to say my sex life has better prospects than the Jets’ season.
Marty:
A few years ago, I ended my WYTS submission by saying “Fuck the city of Cincinnati.” I must now inform you I moved to Cincinnati last year and will be marrying my born-and-raised Cincy fiancé next year. The universe is funny like that.
Rory:
I’m legitimately surprised Ichiro didn’t find a way to insult the New York Jets in his HoF induction speech.
Simon:
The Jets’ last Super Bowl appearance is closer to when the Archduke Franz Ferdinand decided to take a drive with the top down than it is to today.
Kevin:
I grew up in Southern California but have Long Island roots, and my dad happened to be an impressionable teenager in 1969 when the Jets won their only Super Bowl. So here I am today, a 38 year-old Jets fan living in San Diego, and the goddamn team hasn’t even made the Super Bowl in my lifetime. Hell, they’re fifth out of four teams in the number of AFC East titles won, thanks to the Colts winning a few before moving to another division 20 years ago.
I’m the only Jets fan most of my friends know. Anytime they do something stupid (which is often!), I’m the person they all reach out to so they can have a conversation about it. I end up having the same conversations with dozens of people. Yes, I know they suck. Yes, it was ironic watching Aaron Rodgers tear his Achilles moments after he ran out with the American flag on 9/11. Yes, I’m aware the greatest NFL coach of all time wrote his resignation from the Jets on a napkin just before his introductory press conference.
But something changed in me last year. After talking myself into Aaron Rodgers, making excuses to my friends for his stature as a vapid, self-centered, and all-around horrible human being, and watching the Jets fail gloriously, again, I just don’t care about entertaining those conversations anymore. I had a spiritual awakening of sorts, and decided they don’t deserve my time, my attention, my fandom. My wife is a Tennessee Titans fan, and the level of apathy from those around us is appealing, so I think I’m going to try that for a while.
Fuck the Jets for making me root for the stupid Titans. Fuck Woody and Brick Johnson and whatever failsons they have that own the Jets. And fuck my friends for reminding me constantly how much the Jets suck. Go Titans.
Thomas:
I’m critical of sportswashing but if the Saudi PIF bought the Jets, the lizard brained part of me would be excited for potentially competent owners. Then again, the lizard brained part of me was also excited for Aaron Rodgers and we all saw how that turned out.
Want to be part of Defector’s NFL previews? It’s simple: just email us here and tell us why your team sucks. Next up: Carolina Panthers.