The National Football League conducts its business with authority. From the pomp and circumstance of the Super Bowl to Roger Goodell encouraging NFL draft day boos, the world’s professional sports superpower is anything but subtle.
Even the league schedule has become an event.
Streaming on a primetime Thursday, even the schedule’s introduction — four months ahead of the actual start time — brings the noise and never apologizes for how loud it becomes.
Not only does this annual event lead social media departments to attempt to outperform others through schedule-release videos, but it also establishes the over-analysis of near-unpredictable information. Let’s call it straight: Nobody has a damn idea what the Las Vegas Raiders will look like on Nov. 1, 2026, yet everybody nonetheless indulges in the socially acceptable silliness.
Evaluating the New York Jets schedule comfortably falls under that idea. Thus, it’s appropriate to identify the silent strategy complication occurring in such a noisy world.
Film process
The two divisions on the Jets’ slate this season are the AFC West and NFC North. Suffice it to say that isn’t exactly the most ideal situation.
But hey, that’s the way things go for the AFC East in 2026. Each of the four teams in the division takes on those eight opponents at some point this coming season.
Here’s the rub: How it’s ordered is the under-the-radar sticking point.
Film watching isn’t just a pastime for football players and coaches; it’s a necessity in the modern world. Never has the NFL been as driven by scheme and strategy, which means preparing a game plan is born from the tape.
A lot of it is a guessing game.
For instance, Jets head coach Aaron Glenn will prepare his Jets to take on Robert Saleh’s Tennessee Titans in Week 1. How he does that is accumulated by a combination of who he thinks his own team is, what the opposing team’s tendencies are, and what he believes the opposition will do.
The tape he and Frank Reich will watch in preparation is endless. Saleh’s San Francisco 49ers defense will be on the docket. Likewise, so will Saleh’s Jets’ defenses, as well as the Titans’ defense from 2025, to get an idea about certain players.
The same can be said on the other side of the ball. Glenn will prepare his defense by reviewing Brian Daboll’s previous offenses and the Titans’ 2025 tape.
Week 1 is the most unique of the season, each season, because the guessing game ramps up to its peak.
Film familiarity
The Jets’ schedule disadvantage begins in Week 3.
As the season progresses, each team becomes more familiar with the next. This is exponentially true for teams within the same division.
Every organization’s initial goal in this league is to win the division. Period. That’s the first order of business: To out-gun and defeat the three most familiar division foes, thus earning an automatic place in the tournament.
After the Jets play in Tennessee, they face three straight NFC North squads. Week 2 against the Green Bay Packers — the Jets’ home-opener — has no inherent disadvantage.
After that, it begins…
The Detroit Lions-Week 3 matchup puts the Jets behind the eight-ball a bit because the Lions are extremely familiar with their divisional rival, the Packers. Since the Lions know the Packers intimately well, Dan Campbell and company will have a better idea of who the Jets are — purely by watching the tape and understanding how Glenn’s squad played against the Pack.
A week later, the Chicago Bears will own a slightly better advantage than the Lions, considering they’ll have two straight Jets tapes against the NFC North. For Ben Johnson, the degree to which he’ll have to guess decreases, considering he can more plainly see how the Jets play against two teams he knows inside and out.
While there’s no getting around playing the NFC North, lining up three consecutive games against the division creates a disadvantage in the film-watching phase. Playing the division in a more spread-out variety creates more randomness since teams rarely remain the same over the course of an entire season.
At the same time, let’s not forget that Glenn knows that division himself. Oh yeah, he sort of knows Mr. Campbell pretty well, too.
Nonetheless, the trend also appears later in the season.
The Jets play the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 8, the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 9, and the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 11, establishing a three-out-of-four situation later in the season. Sprinkle in the Week 14 game against the Denver Broncos, and another divisional stretch is born.
Not a death knell
Despite the legitimate disadvantage, this sticky situation is by no means a death knell. In fact, the strategic head coach can use it to his advantage.
For that to happen, Glenn would have to showcase a versatile, no-fear mindset when game-planning each week. He’d also have to feel comfortable with the idea that his team could accomplish a chameleon-like first month.
Interestingly, the last exciting Jets start to a season featured this very situation. After losing to the Baltimore Ravens in Week 1, the 2022 Jets faced three straight AFC North opponents.
A miracle road win over the Cleveland Browns got the party started. Despite falling to the Cincinnati Bengals at MetLife Stadium, they hit the road strong by upsetting the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The 2-1 stretch against the AFC North catapulted them to a 5-2 start. Unfortunately, they lost Breece Hall and Alijah Vera-Tucker for the season in Denver, while winning that fifth game, but the point of the story holds firm.
At the end of the day, divisional stretches like these are far from a death sentence, but there’s certainly an established twist in the scheme game. How Aaron Glenn and the New York Jets handle the situation will be quite interesting to commence the 2026 season.
