The New York Jets’ 5.5-win total has not moved in two months. Two NFL analysts think it should still drop. On the latest episode of PFSN’s “Football Debate Club,” Dalton Wasserman and Ian Cummings both took the under on New York’s regular-season win total, breaking from a public consensus that Aaron Glenn’s makeover sets up a bounce-back season.
Glenn went 3-14 in his debut. The Jets became the first team in NFL history to finish a season without a defensive interception. The roster is unrecognizable from the one that dropped its final five games by at least 23 points apiece, which was also an NFL record.
Geno Smith Inherits an AFC West, NFC North Gauntlet
Glenn and the Jets used the No. 2 overall pick on Texas Tech edge David Bailey, brought in Demario Davis and Minkah Fitzpatrick on defense, traded for Geno Smith, and added three first-rounders for the first time since 2022. The optimism is fair, but the schedule is brutal.
“When you look at this team, it’s still a team with some struggles at quarterback,” Wasserman said. “Geno Smith really struggled in Las Vegas last year, trying to figure it out. Maybe it’ll be better with a better offensive line, better passing weapons like Garrett Wilson on the outside. But when you look at their schedule, having to play the NFC North and the AFC West, it’s still going to be a hard time for them racking up wins.”
Smith threw for 3,025 yards with 19 touchdowns and a league-leading 17 interceptions in 15 games for the Las Vegas Raiders in 2025, posting an 84.7 passer rating before Las Vegas traded him to New York on March 10. PFSN’s QB Impact score graded him at 68.4, a D+ that ranked 34th in the league last season.
The bigger problem is the slate of games. The Jets drew both the AFC West and NFC North, the same two divisions that produced six teams with winning records last season, on top of the standard AFC East slate against the Buffalo Bills, New England Patriots, and Miami Dolphins. The non-division relief comes from the Cleveland Browns, Tennessee Titans, and Arizona Cardinals. That is a thin runway for a Jets team that went 0-8 against winning teams last year.
Cummings landed at the same answer through a different door.
“They downgraded, notably, at offensive coordinator going from Tanner Engstrand, who’s now with the Falcons, to Frank Reich,” Cummings said. “I don’t trust Aaron Glenn to handle adversity, and I don’t trust the support staff they have in place.”
That distrust is the part of the argument the Jets cannot solve in May. Last year, the team traded Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams at the deadline, fired defensive coordinator Steve Wilks and seven assistants, and closed the year with five blowout losses. Owner Woody Johnson‘s public backing has not wavered. The internal margin for error in 2026 is gone.
Reich won a Super Bowl with the Philadelphia Eagles as offensive coordinator in 2017, fielded three top-10 scoring offenses across his Indianapolis Colts head-coaching tenure, and inherits a skill room with Wilson, a freshly extended Breece Hall, rookie tight end Kenyon Sadiq, and first-round receiver Omar Cooper Jr.
However, Cummings is skeptical about the hire.
“On paper, he was an acceptable hire,” Cummings said of Reich. “Very experienced, he’s got a lot of a track record in the NFL. But I will say I think he’s past his prime, and I’m worried that it’s a little outdated.”
Cummings pointed to Reich’s final months in Carolina, citing bottom-five marks in pre-snap motion percentage, motion success rate, and play-action rate at the time of his firing. The 2023 Panthers used pre-snap motion on 28.3% of plays, a figure that would have ranked dead last in the NFL in 2025. Modern defenses live in disguised pre-snap looks.
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Static offenses get pigeonholed quickly. Reich was fired 11 games into his Panthers tenure at 1-10, spent 2025 as Stanford’s interim coach, and was hired Feb. 4. The Jets are betting that gap year sharpened him, but the film from his last NFL stop isn’t pretty.
Pair Reich’s track record with Smith’s career-long Cover 2 issues, an offensive line returning largely the same unit that was mediocre last year, and a young pass-catching corps, and there are some concerns. The Jets will look more competent than the 3-14 team that closed last season, but looking competent and doubling their win total are not the same thing.
