NY Jets say they will focus on a specific defensive skill in practice

Ranked 29th in points allowed per drive (2.61), there are numerous areas where the New York Jets’ defense can improve.

But according to veteran defensive tackle Harrison Phillips, the unit plans to hone in on a certain skill during the upcoming week of practice.

Speaking to the media on Monday, the 29-year-old run-stuffer explained the Jets’ desire to focus on punch-outs as they prepare for their Week 4 game against the Miami Dolphins.

“Those punch-outs that we don’t fall on, that’s just unfortunate. That football is shaped a really weird way and it bounces a really strange way, but eventually, it will bounce our way,” Phillips said.

“So, we’re just going to be even more conscious about creating more turnovers, creating more punch-outs, more opportunities, and that’s something that we’ll emphasize extremely heavy this week: punching out the football. You guys are out there, I’m sure you’ll see a lot of our running backs with bruises up and down their forearms.”

New York is one of three teams that have yet to record a takeaway this season. It isn’t due to an inability to punch the ball out, as the Jets have forced four opponent fumbles. Unfortunately, all four were recovered by the offense.

One of those fumbles was forced by Phillips in Sunday’s loss to Tampa Bay. With 4:55 remaining in the second quarter, Phillips teamed up with linebacker Quincy Williams for a third-down sack on Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield, punching the ball out in the process. In a familiar stroke of misfortune, the ball bounced directly back to Bucs left tackle Graham Barton with no Jets in the area.

Meanwhile, the Jets’ lone fumble of the game was recovered by Tampa Bay, when a second-quarter strip-sack of Tyrod Taylor popped directly into the waiting arms of Vita Vea.

Such is life in the game of football, which, as Phillips accurately described, is played with a prolate spheroid designed to facilitate randomness. All you can do is tilt the odds in your favor by forcing as many opponent fumbles as possible and minimizing your own fumbles.

In typical Jets fashion, though, it often feels like the football gods have a vendetta against the franchise. Nine total fumbles have occurred in the Jets’ three games this year, and New York recovered just two of them, a 22.2% rate. On top of their 0-for-4 luck defensively, the boys in green have retained just two of their own five fumbles.

It continues a bizarrely consistent trend for the Jets, who have long been waiting for their fumble luck to balance out. From 2016 to 2023, New York went on an eight-year streak of failing to recover more than 50% of live balls. The Jets snapped that streak in 2024, ranking 10th in the league with a 52.4% recovery rate, but it did little to reverse the team’s fortunes.

Based on the shape of the ball, it seems absurdly unlikely that a team could go eight straight seasons without having the rock bounce into their arms more than half of the time. If recovering over half of fumbles is truly a coin-flip proposition, the chances of New York having eight straight seasons of a sub-50% fumble recovery rate are 1 in 256.

Are the Jets really that unlucky as a franchise? Or is recovering fumbles more of a skill than we’ve been led to believe?

That debate will likely go unsolved until the end of time. As for the 2025 Jets, though, it seems to be a case of bad luck for now.

It’s not as if the Jets have shown a lack of skill or effort in the art of scooping up loose balls. That could be the case in certain scenarios, but we haven’t seen that in 2025 just yet. No Jets defender had a legitimate chance of recovering any of their opponents’ four fumbles this year.

For now, all New York’s defenders can do is keep trying to tilt the odds in their favor and hope that gravity starts warming up to the idea of being a Jets fan.

And if it turns out that gravity is a bitter Baltimore Colts fan who still isn’t over Super Bowl III? Well, there might not be much the Jets can do – unless they master the art of the Jamal Adams purse-snatch.