Preseason games should always be taken with a grain of salt.

But when it comes to a franchise that has not made the playoffs in 15 years, it’s reasonable to reach a little deeper for a spoonful of optimism. Any ounce of positivity is welcome around these parts.

Here are three promising stats from the New York Jets’ first two preseason games, each providing hope that the team-wide culture is turning a corner under head coach Aaron Glenn.

2 defensive penalties

Through two games, the Jets’ defense has committed just two penalties.

One was a holding penalty on defensive tackle Ben Barton, who was later waived.

The other was for 12 men on the field.

In essence, no defensive player on the Jets’ current roster has committed an individual defensive flag yet.

Few things make fans more upset at a head coach than an onslaught of penalties. But when the team is doing a great job of avoiding them, it’s crickets.

Time will tell whether this translates to the regular season, but for now, Glenn deserves credit for overseeing an extremely disciplined defense.

1 combined penalties-plus-pressures for first-team offensive line

The Jets’ first-team offensive line started each of the first two games. While they only got one series in each game, giving us an extremely small sample size to work with, their performance so far has been nearly flawless.

Across 21 offensive snaps on the field together, the Jets’ starting five offensive linemen have combined for zero penalties and one allowed pressure, which was a hit allowed by left tackle Olu Fashanu. Otherwise, the unit has not allowed any sacks or hurries.

Both drives with the starting offense were successful, leading to a combined 10 points and 134 yards.

We’re going to need to see much more than two preseason drives to crown this offensive line among the NFL’s best, but so far, they’ve done what’s expected of them.

8 missed tackles

Combined, the Jets’ defense has been credited with only eight missed tackles, per Pro Football Focus.

New York is tied with the Green Bay Packers for the second-fewest defensive missed tackles in the NFL this preseason. Only the Pittsburgh Steelers (7) have missed fewer.

For perspective, the average team has missed 16.1 tackles this preseason. The Jets are at half of that number.

Most impressively, the Jets’ projected starters have combined for just one missed tackle (Brandon Stephens). Additionally, we have yet to see a Jets linebacker credited for a missed tackle.

Perhaps this is no accident. In July, Glenn spoke about using analytics and sports science to design the team’s practice scheduling throughout training camp, intended to best prepare the players for the regular season.

“I showed (the players) a graph to where the first week, the highest amount of reps we get is 24 reps and then we’re going to recover, then we’ll bring it down,” Glenn said. “So, we had two practices on (the field) and then we bring it down for recovery, and then it jumps back up. So, the next week, the highest amount of reps we’ll have is 32, and then we’ll recover again. Then the next week, the highest amount of reps will be 40.

“So what I’m trying to do is get our guys to be ready to play 65 to 75 plays a game and that’s my job as a coach to be able to do that.”

As with anything, we will have to wait and see whether this translates to the regular season, but when you see this type of team-wide success in a fundamentals-based category, the coaching staff deserves some credit.