The New York Jets will go as far as Geno Smith takes them in 2026.
Smith is capable of leading a winning football team. He’s done it in three of the last four seasons.
In the lone campaign where Smith failed to lead a winning squad, his supporting cast was a major problem. This past season, the Las Vegas Raiders put Smith in a situation that would make life difficult for any quarterback.
There is a laundry list of issues that we could unpack, but one of the most problematic was the Raiders’ run game. Las Vegas ranked last in rushing yards per game (77.5), rushing touchdowns (5), and yards per rush attempt (3.6), putting an immense weight on Smith’s shoulders.
Smith was unable to carry that weight. Going into 2026, it’s clear that the Jets will have to support Smith with a substantially better run game if they wish to bring back the version of No. 7 who led the Seattle Seahawks to three straight winning seasons from 2022-24.
The Jets have the pieces to give Smith the run game he desperately needs. In 2025, the Jets ranked 10th-best in rushing yards per game (123.3) and eighth-best in yards per rush attempt (4.6).
However, it is worth noting that much of that success could be attributed to quarterback Justin Fields, who provided 42.6 rushing yards per game on 5.4 yards per attempt. The Jets will lose most of that production by swapping from Fields to Smith, who averaged just 7.3 rushing yards per game last season.
That will put the spotlight on an area of the Jets’ run game that desperately needs improvement: their outside attack.
Take out Fields’ incredible scrambling production, and the Jets struggled mightily to run the ball outside.
New York posted brutal efficiency metrics on designed rushes to the outside. On designed attempts directed to the left edge (outside of the left tackle), they averaged -0.19 EPA (Expected Points Added) per attempt, ranking 29th in the league. To the right edge, they averaged -0.16 EPA per attempt, placing 31st.
Overall, the Jets called 85 designed rush attempts to either edge, which is an average of precisely five per game, and they averaged -0.18 EPA per attempt on those carries. That’s a ton of lost value per game on outside rush attempts.
For the Jets to turn things around in this area, it will take a team effort.
It starts with RB1 Breece Hall, who is capable of playing even better football despite reaching a career-high 1,065 rushing yards in 2025.
Hall’s 2025 season was defined by career-best consistency from carry to carry. He looked better than ever at getting downhill and churning forward for consistent positive gains. This is reflected by his 49.8% rushing success rate (per Pro Football Reference), the best of his career (excluding his shortened rookie year) and a noticeable improvement over his 42.8% rate over the previous two seasons.
However, the talented speedster left a bit to be desired when it came to making defenders miss. Pro Football Focus credited Hall with 40 missed tackles forced, which placed just 19th among running backs despite Hall ranking 11th in rushing attempts.
On a per-carry basis, Hall was mediocre at forcing missed tackles. He averaged 0.164 missed tackles forced per attempt, placing 17th among the 21 running backs with at least 200 carries.
This is important because it directly relates to outside running. On between-the-tackles carries, contact balance and power are the paramount traits; i.e., yards after contact. But when a run is designed to go to the edge, that’s when the runner is more frequently tasked with making defenders miss in one-on-one, open-field situations.
Hall averaged just 3.9 yards per carry on rushes directed to either edge. On all other attempts, he averaged 4.6 yards per carry.
New York’s freshly extended RB1 is certainly capable of better elusiveness than he showed in 2025. His career-high for missed tackles forced per carry is 0.202, set back in 2023. For perspective, this would have ranked ninth among the 21 running backs with at least 200 carries in 2025, eight spots ahead of his actual 17th-place ranking.
It goes beyond Hall, though. He will have better chances to make defenders miss if his blockers on the outside can give him more space.
The skill-position blockers are a critical piece of the outside run game. The tight ends and wide receivers have to play their part.
In particular, New York needs better blocking from the wide receiver position. In 2025, the Jets’ wide receivers cumulatively earned a 52.6 run-blocking grade from Pro Football Focus, ranking 20th among wide receiver units.
Things appear to be looking up, though. The highest-graded run blocking wide receiver on the team was actually Garrett Wilson at 58.1, which is a solid mark for the position (it put him in the 69th percentile among WRs with at least 100 blocking snaps), and Wilson only played seven games. A full season of Wilson would help.
Plus, the Jets added veteran receiver Tim Patrick to the back end of their unit; Patrick had a 61.1 run-blocking grade last season, placing him in the 78th percentile among wideouts.
In addition, first-round rookie receiver Omar Cooper Jr. was considered a strong blocker at Indiana, earning a 69.8 run-blocking grade for his efforts in 2025. Jets X-Factor’s Joe Blewett noted in his scouting report of Cooper that the receiver can be “hot and cold” with his blocking efforts, but the highs are high. If the Jets’ coaches can help him channel his effort more consistently, Cooper can be an excellent blocker for the position.
At tight end, the Jets have a lot of promise in Mason Taylor and Jeremy Ruckert, who both rated as above-average blockers for the position in 2025 and are trending up—particularly Taylor, a 21-year-old rookie who entered the league with blocking concerns and gradually improved throughout the year.
Kenyon Sadiq’s blocking will be a question mark. Since Sadiq will be logging plenty of reps in the slot, he will be asked to throw some important crack blocks and lead blocks on outside runs. The Jets’ outside run game could suffer if he isn’t ready to provide adequate blocking.
Of course, though, the Jets’ tackles might be the most integral pieces of the outside run game.
New York shouldn’t have to worry much about right tackle Armand Membou. Despite the Jets’ poor numbers to the right edge in 2025, that wasn’t Membou’s fault. The first-round rookie already looked the part of a high-level run blocker and should only continue ascending in his second season.
On the left side, though, Olu Fashanu’s run blocking is a legitimate concern. Fashanu earned a 57.1 run-blocking grade from PFF, ranking 24th out of 31 qualified left tackles.
Coming out of Penn State, Fashanu was considered more of a finesse pass blocker than a mauling run blocker. Through two seasons, that has not changed. Fashanu has shown more upside as a pass protector than a run blocker. Whiffs in the run game were common on his film in 2025.
The Jets have to support Geno Smith with a strong run game if they wish to bring out a winning version of him, and to do that, they must be far more efficient on outside runs than they were a year ago. Accomplishing that goal will be a team effort, involving every offensive position and, of course, offensive coordinator Frank Reich.
In the past, Reich has aggressively attacked the edges and been successful when doing so. Over Reich’s first four years as the Indianapolis Colts’ head coach, the Colts ranked seventh in the NFL in rush attempts per game to the edges (7.7) and seventh in yards per attempt on those carries (5.4).
The obvious concern is that we are talking about success from a half-decade ago. It’s been a relative eon since Reich last succeeded in the NFL. When we last saw Reich, he was fired in-season by the Carolina Panthers after a 1-10 start to the 2023 season. Over those 11 games, the Panthers ranked 31st in yards per carry to the edges (3.9).
Is Reich tuned in enough to the modern zeitgeist to coach up Hall, the tackles, the tight ends, and the wide receivers on the outside run game?
New York’s success on outside runs will be one of the strongest indicators of whether Reich is able to get with the times.
