A Strength Last Year, the New York Jets Defense Is Struggling
After five weeks of the 2020 NFL season, the New York Jets are equally as inept on offense as on defense. While the offense has struggled mightily, the defense hasn’t been able to show itself much better. The frustration shown by defensive players has a slightly different tone, but no less frustrating.
"It's definitely very frustrating," said Jets linebacker Avery Williamson after the Jets’ 30-10 loss to the Arizona Cardinals. "We've been working our butts off all week and just not coming out on top. It's tough. I can't express how tough it is. It's just one of those things. We just can't ... we haven't been able to finish.”
In Sunday’s loss, the Jets gave up 496 yards of total offense and 28 first downs. Blown assignments and poor tackling contributed to the Jets third blowout loss of what is still a young season.
“Obviously, nobody likes losing,” safety Marcus Maye said in a conference call Monday. “Everybody's frustrated right now and trying to do whatever it takes to get a win. We got to support each other, to still push each other. Continue to do our jobs better for the next person.”
Sunday the Jets had no answer defensively for quarterback Kyler Murray. The Cardinals star threw for a career-high 380 yards; it wass the most passing yardage allowed by the Jets in a non-overtime game since 2015 when Blake Bortles had 381 yards. The Jets won that game.
“The fact of the matter is we just have to commit a hundred percent to the game plan and go ahead and just do it and communicate when we're making a check or a change so everyone's on the same page,” said linebacker Jordan Jenkins Monday on a conference call with the media.
“Guys are staying together at this point,” Jenkins continued. “I mean, we stayed together through these last five games. I don't feel like that's going to change throughout the rest of the season. Ultimately you just have to go out there and just win. That's a hard thing to come by in this league and no matter what we have to do, we just have to collectively on both sides of the ball, special teams included. If we have to meet extra (then) meet extra, we have to go do extra walkthroughs, do extra walkthroughs. We just can't continue doing this week in and week out.”
Through five weeks, the Jets have given up at least 27 points in every game. This defense says they are staying together. Collectively they are giving up 395 yards per game.
For a unit that was a strength of the Jets on last year’s 7-9 team has become just as much of a liability as the struggling offense.
“The only thing that we can really do right now is continue to push and fight and work smarter,” Maye said. “We go to work every day but you gotta find a way to bring it all the way around come Sunday.”
