New York Jets fans are desperate. They haven’t seen their team make the playoffs in 15 years, or even post a .500 record in 10 years.
When a franchise struggles so consistently, it can often feel as if the losing is viewed as acceptable within the organization. At times during this playoff drought (the longest active drought in North American sports), that may have been the case for New York.
The Jets’ current players, though, want fans to know that the people in the building are just as desperate to win as the fans.
“There’s a real sense of urgency, I think, from everybody in here to be at their best every day,” said center Josh Myers at OTAs. “I feel like I can just feel it, from top down — from [coach Aaron Glenn] to [offensive coordinator Frank Reich], all the way down.”
Veteran defensive tackle Harrison Phillips echoed Myers’ comments about the sense of urgency in Florham Park, N.J., emphasizing that head coach Aaron Glenn has set the tone for a high level of intensity from a very early point of the offseason.
According to Phillips, Glenn made it “real clear” that it would be “go time” from the start of OTAs. “People approached the offseason with a lot more intensity,” said Phillips.
This February, Phillips delivered a statement that encapsulated the losing culture that has been embedded within the Jets’ building. As an eighth-year veteran who had made the playoffs four times before joining New York, his perspective carried a lot of weight.
“I think [Aaron Glenn] inherited a very cancerous, truculent group — whole, top to bottom. … It’s not individual people’s fault. I was there for one season — it was a very difficult season — and I almost wanted to waver on some of my thoughts and my beliefs and my optimism,” said Phillips, ahead of the Super Bowl. “So, I can’t imagine being there for year after year after year after year and not seeing the results that you wanted, and it tainted people.
“[Players get distracted] because my coach is going to get fired, my teammate’s going to get fired, I’m going to be a free agent, I might get fired, I have to play for me, I have to make sure my tape is hot regardless of what the system is asking me to do, what the scheme is telling me to do. Then, young players come in and see, ‘Oh, that’s my vet, that’s how they’re acting, so that’s the way I’m going to act, too.’ It’s a long chain of things and it can’t be fixed like that.”
Nearly four months after those comments, it’s promising for Jets fans to hear Phillips affirm that the sense of urgency in Florham Park has risen. It shows that steps are being taken to correct the losing mindset that Phillips immediately noticed upon being thrust into the Jets’ culture less than a month before the 2025 season.
Most fans won’t buy back in until the number under the “W” starts rising, but as we sit here in June, the Jets’ priorities seem to be in the right place.
