Is the 2023 New York Jets offense the costliest offense in NFL history?
The title of this article is oozing with sarcasm. The “illustrious” all-time NFL distinction we’re talking about is this: the costliest offense in NFL history.
It just might be the 2023 New York Jets offense.
When we talk about how “costly” a unit is, we’re talking about something deeper than simply how “bad” it is. Rather, we’re talking about how dearly the unit cost its team a chance to win the Super Bowl, given how well-constructed the team is at other parts of the roster.
Nothing does a better job of showcasing how costly the Jets’ offense is than their DVOA rankings, which are downright maddening to look at.
DVOA (defense-adjusted value over average) is a great metric for evaluating the efficiency of a unit when accounting for strength of schedule, game situations, and many other variables. It compares a team’s performance to the league average in the given season, so it can be used to compare fairly across different seasons and eras.
Based on DVOA, the Jets have the league’s third-best defense and fourth-best special teams. They are the only team ranked top-five in both categories.
Yet, the Jets are the league’s 26th-best team based on overall DVOA.
That, of course, is due to having the league’s 32nd-ranked offense.
No Jets fan is surprised that the Jets rank 32nd on offense, nor are they shocked that the No. 32 ranking drags the entire team down to the NFL cellar despite New York’s elite success in two of the game’s three phases.
But here’s the catch: The Jets are not 26th overall just because the offense is 32nd.
The Jets are 26th overall because the offense is behind the rest of the NFL by a margin so ridiculously large that it is unfathomable even for a 32nd-ranked offense. Even in the No. 32 slot, you are not supposed to be this miserable.
Let’s get some perspective on how many miles sit between Nathaniel Hackett‘s unit and the rest of the league – even its worst teams.
Here are the bottom 10 teams in offensive DVOA through 15 weeks:
- 32. New York Jets (-33.7%)
- 31. New York Giants (-28.0%)
- 30. Carolina Panthers (-27.1%)
- 29. Cleveland Browns (-14.8%)
- 28. Las Vegas Raiders (-14.5%)
- 27. New England Patriots (-13.2%)
- 26. Arizona Cardinals (-11.3%)
- 25. Atlanta Falcons (-9.2%)
- 24. Chicago Bears (-9.0%)
- 23. Tennessee Titans (-8.8%)
Putting this in chart form helps us visualize the difference.
As you can see, there is a fairly sizable gap between the Jets and the 31st-ranked Giants, and then there is an enormous jump between the 30th-ranked Panthers and the 29th-ranked Browns. The Jets, Giants, and Panthers are in their own stratosphere of awfulness at the bottom, but even amongst them, the Jets are quite a fair bit behind the Giants and Panthers.
The 32nd-ranked Jets and 31st-ranked Giants are separated by 5.7%. That is the same gap between the 28th-ranked Raiders and the 23rd-ranked Titans, a five-team jump.
The most startling gap is the one that stands between the Jets and the 29th-ranked Browns. New York’s 32nd-ranked offense is separated from Cleveland’s 29th-ranked offense by an 18.9% margin. That is essentially identical to the gap that separates the 12th-ranked Seahawks (4.3%) from the 28th-ranked Raiders (-14.5%), a 16-team jump. Another gap of similar size is the one between the fifth-ranked Chiefs (16.1%) and 20th-ranked Saints (-2.6%).
So, picture the Chiefs’ offense in your head. Now picture the Saints’ offense. Visualize how far apart those two offenses are.
That is the same distance that separates the Jets’ offense from the fourth-worst offense in the NFL.
It’s an impressive feat. I would think a team could only be this bad if it was actively attempting to do so. And I don’t think that is the case here, which makes the Jets’ effort all the more remarkable.
The Jets’ offense is so abysmal that it is creating a new definition of what it means to be the NFL’s 32nd-ranked offense. The league-worst offenses of the past few years are laughing at this unit.
Over the previous three seasons (2020-22), the average DVOA of the three 32nd-ranked offenses was -24.7%:
- 2022 Colts: -26.2%
- 2021 Giants: -27.4%
- 2020 Jets: -20.4%
The average DVOA of those three teams is a whopping 9.0% better than this year’s Jets (-33.7%).
To that into perspective, 9.0% is the margin that separates a perfectly league-average offense in 2023 (0.0%) from the 24th-ranked Bears offense (-9.0%).
So, essentially, the gap between a league-average offense and the Bears offense (quarterbacked by Justin Fields and Tyson Bagent) is the same as the gap between this year’s Jets and your typical league-worst offense.
This is where the costliness factor comes into play.
The Jets’ defense and special teams are so phenomenal, and their offense is so horrifying, that if their offense simply improved to the level of the 32nd-ranked offenses from 2020-22, they would be a significantly better team.
Right now, the Jets are 26th in overall DVOA at -15.5%. This is calculated as follows:
- -33.7% offense
- +15.0% defense
- +3.2% special teams
- = -15.5% overall
By improving the offense from -33.7% to -24.7% (the average mark of the last three 32nd-ranked offenses prior to 2023), the Jets’ overall DVOA would improve all the way to -6.5%.
- -24.7% offense
- +15.0% defense
- +3.2% special teams
- = -6.5% overall
Merely by improving to the level of a typical league-worst offense, the Jets would move up by four spots to 22nd in overall DVOA. They would slide in between the 21st-ranked Packers (-5.6%) and the 22nd-ranked Broncos (-7.0%).
Most likely, that improvement would put the Jets at six or seven wins right now. This is considering the records of Green Bay (6-8) and Denver (7-7) along with the Jets’ unbelievable total of three one-score losses in games where they scored 12 points or less (vs. NE, @ LV, vs. ATL). It’s possible all three of those games could have flipped if their offensive DVOA took a 9.0% jump, potentially giving the Jets as many as eight wins right now.
Yes, you read that right. To be in the playoff hunt right now, all the Jets’ offense had to do was meet the below-sea-level bar of having a normal 32nd-ranked offense. And they couldn’t even come close.
That’s how grotesque this offense is. You could take any 32nd-ranked offense from previous seasons and it would be a significant upgrade. Heck, if the Jets matched their 2020 offensive production (-20.4% DVOA) – you know, the unit led by Adam Gase, Sam Darnold, Frank Gore, Breshad Perriman, and Chris Herndon – they would be featured within those “In The Hunt” graphics at this very moment.
Considering how impactful it would be if the Jets simply jumped to the level of the fabled 2020 Jets, imagine how many wins they’d add if the offense was league-average, or even if it just ranked in the mid-twenties. I would advise you to stop the daydreaming right there: I don’t think it would be wise for Jets fans to punish themselves by fantasizing about what the team would look like if the offense was legitimately good.
This is truly one of the worst offenses in NFL history, and considering the success of the defense and special teams, it has a strong argument to be the costliest offense in the history of the league. There is strong evidence to back this up.
First, we have to get an approximation of where this offense stands among the worst offenses in history. We don’t have DVOA data throughout all of NFL history (it only goes back to 1981), so we’ll rely on total yards for the sake of this experiment.
The Jets’ offense is averaging a league-low 255.1 total yards per game, which falls 75.9 yards shy of the current league average in 2023 (331.0 yards per game). Their margin of -75.9 total yards per game compared to the league average currently ranks as the 29th-worst single-season mark of any team in the Super Bowl era (since 1966).
Mind you, that’s out of 1,668 teams, meaning this Jets offense is producing yardage at a less efficient rate than 98.3% of teams in modern NFL history.
It’s fair to say this is one of the top 30 worst offenses in NFL history, at the very least. Now, to deduce how costly the offense is, we have to compare the Jets’ defense to the defenses of the other historically bad offenses.
Among the top 30 worst teams in total yards per game versus league average, the 2023 Jets arguably have the best defense.
The Jets’ defense currently ranks seventh-best in the NFL with 298.4 yards per game allowed, which is 32.6 yards better than the league average (331.0). That +32.6 margin ranks third-best among the top 30 worst offenses, trailing only the 2011 Jaguars (+33.8) and the 2006 Raiders (+37.3). No other team is particularly close to the top three, with the 1993 Bears checking at No. 4 with +19.3.
While the 2011 Jaguars and 2006 Raiders surpass the 2023 Jets in terms of yards per game, the Jets easily clear the other two defenses based on DVOA. The 2011 Jaguars ranked ninth-best with a -7.8% defensive DVOA while the 2006 Raiders ranked seventh-best with a -6.9% DVOA. The 2023 Jets are third-best at -15.0%. (Note: for defenses, a negative DVOA is better.)
Of the top 30 worst teams in total yardage margin, 20 of them are from the DVOA era (1981 to present), and of those 20 teams, the 2023 Jets have the best defensive DVOA and ranking. Coming in second is the 1992 Seahawks, who were fourth-best with a -12.6% defensive DVOA.
That was a long-winded path to concluding that the 2023 Jets arguably have the best defense of any team in NFL history that performed similarly poorly on offense – supporting our hypothesis that this is the costliest offense in NFL history.
Another way to look at this is by seeing which teams in the DVOA era have had the largest margin between their performance on defense and special teams compared to their performance on offense. And the Jets are right up there.
With a -15.0% defensive DVOA and a 3.2% special teams DVOA, the Jets’ defense and special teams have a combined margin of +18.2% versus average, which is 51.9% ahead of their -33.7% offensive DVOA.
Among 1,309 teams since 1981, the 2023 Jets currently have the second-largest margin between their combined defense/special teams DVOA and their offensive DVOA:
- 1991 Philadelphia Eagles (60.8%): -38.0% defense (1st), 0.2% special teams (14th), -22.6% offense (26th) – Final record: 10-6
- 2023 New York Jets (51.9%): -15.0% defense (3rd), 3.2% special teams (4th), -33.7% offense (32nd) – Record: 5-9
- 1992 Seattle Seahawks (49.8%): -12.6% defense (4th), -0.5% special teams (16th), -37.7% offense (28th) – Final record: 2-14
- 2016 Los Angeles Rams (44.7%): -3.2% defense (15th), 7.1% special teams (3rd), -34.4% offense (32nd) – Final record: 4-12
- 2002 Houston Texans (42.7%): 2.4% defense (21st), 3.8% special teams (7th), -41.3% offense (32nd) – Final record: 4-12
Only the 1991 Eagles beat out the 2023 Jets. However, that Eagles team still managed to finish 10-6, as they hold the best defensive DVOA in history while their offense was not quite as bad as the Jets’. So, their offense arguably did not hurt them as this Jets team. They are mainly up there because of how historically great the defense was, which inflates this particular metric.
And when you look at the other three teams in the top five, those teams were not nearly as good as the Jets between defense and special teams. They mainly ranked so high because their offenses were somehow even worse than the Jets’. They didn’t have as high of a ceiling as this Jets team did.
Ultimately, the Jets’ combined 18.2% defense/special teams DVOA ranks 64th-best out of 1,309 teams since 1981, better than 95.2% of teams in the DVOA era. Meanwhile, their -33.7% offensive DVOA ranks 1,301st, better than only 0.6% of teams in the DVOA era.
It’s official: This is the costliest offense in the history of football. Other teams can make arguments, but the evidence we have reviewed today is extremely difficult to dispute. No other team in modern NFL history has lost out on as many potential victories as this Jets team solely because of its offense.
