An NFL team should never be outclassed to this extent.

It does not matter if you have a rookie coaching staff and a new quarterback, or if you’re facing the reigning MVP and the five-time defending AFC East champions. The talent gap between two professional football teams is never large enough to justify (checks notes):

  • Going 0-for-11 on third down
  • Getting out-gained by 249 yards
  • Running 3 offensive plays in the third quarter
  • Having 8 passing yards before garbage time
  • Having a ≤5% win probability for the entire second half
  • (All on your home field, no less)

The 30-10 final score vastly undersells how drastically the Jets were schooled in an utterly rotten performance that makes Morbius (2022) seem like The Godfather (1972). This was one of the most dreadful showings the Jets have ever put forth, and that is saying quite a lot for this franchise.

In fact, the Jets’ -249 yardage margin on Sunday is the 10th-worst output in franchise history at home. It’s their worst since Week 10 of the 2018 season (also vs. Buffalo), which means, yes, it is already worse than any Adam Gase or Robert Saleh-coached team.

There is no excuse or silver lining for this type of production. Regardless of Buffalo’s excellence or the fact that New York is still extremely early into the tenure of a new regime, this is the type of no-show that sends some terrifying signals about an organization.

Nobody expected the Jets to win many games this year. I had them winning six games in my final prediction, and some people thought I was being generous.

But most prognosticators, myself included, envisioned the Jets to lose games in a promising and competitive fashion, much like they did in Week 1. Clear talent deficiencies on the roster were always going to hold this team back, but with the apparent changes to the franchise’s culture by way of refreshed leadership, the days of soulless wire-to-wire blowouts were supposed to be gone.

Then, the Jets come out and deliver the most “Same Old Jets” performance you could have scripted.

  • Dumb penalties from bad players who should have not made the roster
  • Awful quarterback play
  • Cowardly coaching decisions
  • The commentary booth going into storytelling mode in the third quarter

You name the Jets trope, it was on full display.

Sunday’s loss sends a gloomy message: Nothing around the Jets will change until they, well, win football games.

For all of the hype sold around Glenn, general manager Darren Mougey, and this revamped organization throughout the offseason, they are still delivering the same on-field results (if not worse) than their predecessors.

The Jets deserve time to get this thing turned around. We’re only two games in, and the Bills are the class of the AFC right now. If just one more break had gone the Jets’ way in Week 1, they would be sitting here at 1-1 with a quality victory to fall back on despite this week’s stinker. Record aside, they have essentially played one solid game and one awful game, and that’s with both opponents being playoff-quality.

While patience is necessary at this infancy stage of the Glenn-Mougey era, it does not mean the team deserves a pass for delivering a performance of this caliber. Losing a football game is one thing, but not arriving at the stadium is another.

This was the kind of defective product that no NFL team should ever deliver to its home fans, whether you’re the 2007 Patriots or the 2017 Browns. When fans buy tickets to see their favorite team play on their home field, the bare minimum expectation is that they get to see four quarters of compelling competition in which the outcome hangs at least somewhat in doubt. Heck, even three quarters would be nice.

It is alarming and borderline unfathomable how often the Jets manage to come out on their home field and go 60 consecutive minutes without ever giving their fans a reason to believe they have a chance of winning the game.

Since 2011, the Jets have suffered a league-high 18 home losses by 20+ points. That’s more than double the league average (8). Two teams (Green Bay and Pittsburgh) have only two such losses over that span.

Even worse than the Jets’ point differential in some of these losses is the nature of how they get to it. You can lose by 20 points after fighting hard for three quarters and imploding on a sequence of plays in the fourth quarter. With the Jets, though, it often feels like they never have a chance.

In Sunday’s loss, the Jets’ win probability peaked at 38%. When did they hit that apex of hope, you ask? On the opening kickoff, when Isaiah Davis took his return one yard past the touchback marker.

From there, the Jets’ win probability was already under by 20% before the end of the first quarter, never to recover. By the 10-minute mark of the second quarter, they went under 10% for good, and they spent the entire second half at 5% or less.

Think about that. Jets fans trudged through swamp traffic to show up at the stadium and root for their team in a thrilling AFC East duel, only to have their optimism peak on the opening kickoff when New York took the ball one yard further than expected.

This degree of ineptitude should never happen.

The bar is not high for this Jets team. Nobody is expecting them to compete for a playoff spot. Even seven wins would be considered a success by many.

All this team needs to do to win over a large segment of the fanbase is, well, be competitive. And just two weeks in, fans have already lost faith that the team can give them hope past the opening kickoff of a home game.

Time will tell where the 2025 Jets end up, and whether Aaron Glenn and Darren Mougey are the right guys to turn this franchise around over the long haul. The only reality at this point in time is that Glenn and Mougey, despite their signs of promise this offseason, do not deserve any more blind optimism from Jets fans.

In a matter of just two weeks, the Jets’ new regime has already shown it is just as capable of delivering a classic Jets no-show as Robert Saleh, Adam Gase, Todd Bowles, skinny Rex Ryan, and every other Jets regime this side of Bill Parcells.

The culture has not changed. That distinction can be saved until the Jets start translating hype into results.