You could use many words in the English dictionary to describe the 2024 New York Jets.
“Clutch” is not one of them.
The 2024 Jets were a mentally weak group. When placed under pressure, they did not display the fortitude of a winning team, and it caused them to underperform in numerous games where they should have been able to push through and come out victorious. This is why, despite having all of the talent they needed to make a playoff run, the whole was less than the sum of the parts.
The Jets’ lack of heart was the most apparent in the highest leverage situations. The bigger the moment, the smaller they played.
This is encapsulated by New York’s performance in one specific situation: fourth down.
The Jets were an abysmal fourth-down team on both sides of the football. Offensively, they converted 41.7% of their own fourth downs, which ranked 29th in the NFL. Defensively, they allowed their opponents to convert a shocking 76.2% of their fourth downs, which ranked 30th.
Only the Tennessee Titans were less clutch than the Jets on fourth down. New York had a -34.5% differential in fourth-down conversion rate, better than only Tennessee’s -37.8%.
Most of the teams that struggled in this metric finished with a losing record.
Worst fourth-down conversion rate differential, 2024:
- 25. Carolina Panthers (5-12): -13.3%
- 26. Arizona Cardinals (8-9): -13.9%
- 27. San Francisco 49ers (6-11): -15.4%
- 28. Las Vegas Raiders (4-13): -20.9%
- 29. Pittsburgh Steelers (10-7): -29.3%
- 30. Dallas Cowboys (7-10): -32.3%
- 31. New York Jets (5-12): -34.5%
- 32. Tennessee Titans (3-14): -37.8%
Meanwhile, seven of the top nine teams in this metric finished with a winning record.
As complex as football can seem, sometimes it is quite simple: win on fourth down, win the game. We can spend hours analyzing the 100+ plays that take place over a 60-minute battle, but more often than not, we can trace the outcome of a game back to one or two pivotal fourth down plays that shifted the momentum.
This is especially true in the modern NFL, where the analytics wave has caused fourth-down aggression to skyrocket. In 2024, NFL teams combined for 766 fourth-down attempts. Just 10 years earlier (2014), that number was 451. That’s a 70% increase in the span of one decade.
The average NFL team attempted 1.4 fourth downs per game in 2024. This equates to 2.8 total attempts per game between both teams. Essentially, we should expect three fourth downs to be attempted in the average game. One team has to win the majority of those – and that team is usually the one who wins the game.
In 2024, NFL teams had a record of 78-48 (.619) when they finished the game with a higher fourth-down conversion rate than the opponent. A 62/38 split is a huge swing for a sample that is based on the outcomes of a minuscule portion of the total plays in a game, which shows just how impactful those few fourth downs can be.
The Jets must be more clutch on fourth down if they plan on winning games consistently.
“Clutchness” is a difficult thing to quantify or truly understand. Sports analysts have grappled with the term for decades. Is it a real skill? Or is it just a product of luck over a small sample of plays?
The fact that most of the NFL’s best teams perform well on fourth down would suggest that, yes, indeed, it is a real skill. Not only that, but it is one that stems from that other “C” word that we love to throw around in sports: “culture.”
In 2024, some of the best teams in fourth-down conversion rate differential included the Commanders (+20.3%), Bills (+19.6%), Chiefs (+18.4%), Broncos (+14.9%), Rams (+13.8%), Ravens (+10.4%), and Eagles (+7.1%). Some of these teams had great quarterbacks, some had great defenses, and some had both. But what do they all have in common? Respected head coaches and strong cultures.
Sean McDermott, Andy Reid, John Harbaugh, and Sean McVay have had their teams consistently competing for championships over the last decade. Sean Payton brought prestige to a New Orleans franchise that had achieved very little before his arrival, and now, he is successfully orchestrating a palpable turnaround in Denver.
Dan Quinn did what many before him could not: restore respectability to a laughingstock of a franchise in Washington. Nick Sirianni pulled the Eagles out of the gutter and quickly turned them back into a brash, confident group that runs the NFC.
Aaron Glenn is looking to put himself among those names by facilitating a monumental cultural overhaul with the hapless Jets. While “culture” can seem like a meaningless buzzword, we have reasons to believe it is something that translates to the field. When you see how the aforementioned coaches have their teams performing in the clutch, it is hard not to think that their cultures are a factor in it.
The camaraderie, confidence, and belief instilled by coaches like Reid, Harbaugh, and McVay, along with many others, has to play a role in their teams’ abilities to come up big when it matters most. If Glenn can invigorate the New York locker room with those same traits, perhaps they, too, can shine when the lights are brightest.
It would not be shocking if Glenn pulled it off. In fact, he hails from the team that had the NFL’s best fourth-down conversion rate differential in 2024: the Detroit Lions, who had a whopping 25.3% margin. That was thanks much in part to Glenn’s defense, which ranked second-best with an opposing fourth-down conversion rate of 41.4%.
The Lions’ clutch gene trickles down from their head coach, Dan Campbell, who is widely viewed as one of the best “culture guys” at the head coaching position in today’s NFL (if not the best). Campbell isn’t known for his strategic acumen on either side of the ball, but rather, for his ability to inspire a locker room and foster a winning environment.
Campbell walked into a Detroit organization where losing was an integral part of the brand. Being terrible was what made the Lions likable. In a couple of years, Campbell turned Detroit’s lovable losers into a gritty, tough-minded juggernaut that no team wants to face. When you play the Detroit Lions, you know what type of game you’re in for: They are going to punch you in the mouth. Each week, they bring four quarters of aggressiveness and physicality.
A big part of establishing that identity? Going for it on fourth down – a lot.
It’s one thing to stand in front of the cameras and spew one-liners for the social media intern to use as an Instagram caption. It’s another to walk your talk on the field, and that’s what Campbell has done better than any other coach. He proves how confident he is in his players by constantly showing faith in them to convert on fourth down.
Since Campbell was hired in 2021, the Lions lead the NFL with 151 fourth down attempts, an average of 2.2 per game. It’s not as if he ramped it up after the team got better, either. Campbell established this aspect of his mentality from the moment he walked in the door. In his 2021 debut season, when the Lions were still a rebuilding team with limited talent, Campbell had Detroit ranked first with 41 fourth down attempts.
Not only is this an analytically sound approach, but it helps Campbell instill collective belief within the team. Every time Campbell trots his offense out on fourth down, they get a little extra jolt of confidence, because their coach told them loud and clear: “I believe in you.” It also tells the opponent that three stops isn’t enough, establishing that playing the Lions’ offense is a whole different challenge to prepare for.
When a coach sends the special teams unit out there on fourth-and-short – as the Jets’ last four coaches did way too often – it is a small gut punch to the players. Pro athletes are the ultimate competitors. You can bet that anytime an offensive player sees a kicker or punter coming out in a possible go-for-it situation, there is a little thought along the lines of, “Coach doesn’t believe in us?” running through his mind, even if he doesn’t say it out loud. That subtle zap of confidence can make all the difference in key moments.
Glenn would be wise to take this aspect of Campbell’s coaching to New York. He doesn’t necessarily have to mimic Campbell’s league-leading degree of aggressiveness, but in his first season with the Jets, Glenn should trend toward being more aggressive on fourth down. As Campbell showed in 2021, it is a fantastic method for translating your off-field teachings to the game. Practice what you preach: If you want your players to be confident, show them in-game that you believe in them.
Regardless of the approach Glenn ultimately takes on fourth down, it is promising for Jets fans to know that Glenn spent four years learning under one of the best culture changers in the NFL. He learned firsthand how Campbell walked into a losing organization and injected it with a jolt of newfound confidence that was previously foreign to the franchise.
It wasn’t the first time Glenn was a part of such a turnaround, either. As a player with the Jets, he helped the team go from 1-15 to 12-4 in a matter of two seasons. Later on, as a defensive backs coach in New Orleans, Glenn helped transform a historically awful Saints secondary into one of the league’s best.
The Jets’ 14-year playoff drought has transpired for countless reasons, but one of the most common themes is their smallness in the clutch. New York has played plenty of close games over this span, and could have made multiple playoff appearances if they won a more respectable portion of those. They just haven’t had the collective valor to perform their best when their best is needed. That stems from the lackluster cultures created by the four head coaches who have led them.
Glenn was born to instill the culture change that his predecessors could not. It’s in his football blood, dating back to when he was a 5-foot-9 cornerback who grinded his way from playing in community college to being a first-round pick. From there, he has contributed to night-and-day turnarounds at every level, whether it’s as a Pro Bowl player, an assistant coach, or a defensive coordinator.
Next up: As the head coach of the New York Jets.
Culture is more than a word that gets thrown around in press conferences to fill up the offseason news cycle. It’s a real thing that trickles onto the field. For most of the game, it doesn’t mean much: things are moving too fast for off-field factors to have a noticeable play-to-play effect. But when it’s crunch time, and every little detail could be the difference between winning and losing, that is when we see how much a group of 53 millionaire athletes trust one another.
It’s only June, but Glenn is already passing every test when it comes to changing the Jets’ culture off the field. Things are quiet around this team – too quiet. I am running out of things to write about; the days of getting daily updates about what Aaron Rodgers had for breakfast are in the rearview mirror. Glenn has made the Jets boring, in the very best way.
But once the Jets finally hit the field, the best way to evaluate whether Glenn’s culture change is really working will be to evaluate their performance on fourth down. If the Jets start to shock their fans by finally coming up big in critical moments, the franchise will be one step closer to knowing Glenn is the man they have been waiting for.
