Could the New York Jets start off faster than expected?

When the Jets’ 2026 schedule dropped, plenty of fans were terrified of the team’s early-season slate. For a team that has not made the playoffs in 15 years, it seemed as if another playoff hunt was guaranteed to be squashed by Halloween.

Suddenly, things are looking much peachier for the Jets’ early-season outlook. In a matter of three days, 190.5 career sacks have been removed from the Jets’ first five games.

On Monday, New York’s Week 5 opponent, the Cleveland Browns, sent Myles Garrett to the Los Angeles Rams. Two days later, Green Bay Packers star Micah Parsons announced that he will not return from his torn ACL until at least mid-October. The Jets host Green Bay in their Week 2 home opener, which ensures Parsons will not play in the game, barring a shocking acceleration to his recovery.

It’s terrifying news for the Packers, who struggled mightily to navigate Parsons’ injury in 2025. Including the Week 15 game in which he tore his ACL in the third quarter with Green Bay leading 23-14 over Denver, only to blow the lead post-injury, the Packers went 0-5 without Parsons (which includes a playoff loss in Chicago). Over this stretch, they allowed 155.2 rushing yards per game and picked up four sacks (0.8 per game).

The Packers did not do much in the offseason to bolster the EDGE depth behind Parsons. The only free agent edge rusher they added was Jaden Crumedy, who has 0.5 career sacks, and their earliest draft pick at the position was third-rounder Chris McClellan. The leading sacker on Green Bay’s defense from last season is Devonte Wyatt with 4.0; their second-leading sacker, Rashan Gary (7.5), was traded to Dallas.

The Jets will still likely be underdogs against the Packers, and they were already likely to be slight favorites in their Week 5 home game against the Browns (pending how the first four games go). They also still have to contend with two-time Pro Bowl edge rusher Jared Verse when Cleveland comes to town.

Nonetheless, New York’s first five games certainly look much more favorable without perhaps the two most dominant pass rushers in the NFL involved. The quickest way to lose a football game is by allowing frequent pressure on the quarterback, and the Jets’ odds of preventing that scenario have suddenly increased drastically in two of their first five games.

The Jets’ first five games are as follows:

  • Week 1: at Tennessee Titans (1 p.m. EST)
  • Week 2: vs. Green Bay Packers (1 p.m. EST)
  • Week 3: at Detroit Lions (1 p.m. EST)
  • Week 4: at Chicago Bears (1 p.m. EST)
  • Week 5: vs. Cleveland Browns (1 p.m. EST)

If the Jets can out-duel a pair of fellow 2025 bottom-feeders in the Titans and Browns, while stealing a home game against the Parsons-less Packers, they can get to 3-2 through five games without having to steal either road game against Detroit or Chicago.

Of course, fans and analysts always discuss schedule predictions in this black-and-white manner in the summer, only for every prognostication to be thrown out the window by mid-September. Who knows? Tennessee and Cleveland could be juggernauts. Detroit and Chicago could be pushovers. Maybe the Jets sweep the NFC North and lose the so-called “winnable” games in Weeks 1 and 5.

In a league where many teams experience significant jumps and falls from year to year, it is impossible to truly know how difficult any game will be until it arrives. Injuries are another factor that cannot be predicted.

With all of that said, the Jets won’t complain about nearly 200 career sacks being removed from their first five games of the season.