More than any other team sport, results on the football field are determined by a blend of both the players and the coaches.
Baseball fans love to complain about their teams’ managers, but at the end of the day, they have little effect on the game compared to coaches in other sports. It’s an execution-based sport; the pitcher pitches, the batter bats, and the fielders field. There is only so much the coaching staff can do to affect the players’ execution in those moments.
Basketball fans will pout just as much about their teams’ head coaches, but the NBA is one of the most player-driven leagues in the world. Talent wins.
Football, though, is completely different. There are 22 players on the field, more than double basketball and 11 times as many as the two players directly involved in each baseball play. That vast quantity of chess pieces reduces the value of each individual player, putting more onus on the coaches to properly manage those pieces.
On top of that, football is far more scripted than other sports. Every move by every player on every rep was mapped out for them by the coaching staff. There is, of course, some post-snap improvisation and decision-making, but the players’ step-by-step process is ultimately laid out before the ball is even snapped. Comparatively, basketball is far more improvisational, while baseball involves little to no scripting.
Given the nature of the sport, it’s always worthwhile to dissect a football team’s performance and divvy up the credit (or blame) for the team’s success (or lack thereof) between the players and coaches.
The New York Jets are 2-4. That isn’t a surprising record compared to pre-season expectations, especially given their schedule to this point (five of six games against winning teams). However, compared to how competitive the team has generally looked, it feels slightly underwhelming.
Does that reflect more on the players or the coaches?
Which side deserves more blame for Jets being below .500?
In many ways, the Jets have looked more talented than expected over the first six games of 2026. It can be argued that their talent has performed well enough for the team to win three or even four of their first six games, whereas the coaching staff is to blame for the team falling short of those marks.
It is often difficult to determine whether an individual player’s raw production is their own doing or the product of their scheme and surroundings. For that reason, when trying to separate talent from coaching, it’s worthwhile to focus on areas and metrics that can be more directly attributed to the player, independent of scheme.
In those areas, many of the Jets’ players are thriving, particularly on offense.
It starts with quarterback Geno Smith, who is throwing the ball exceptionally well. Per NFL Pro, Smith has a completion percentage over expected (CPOE) of 6.1%, ranking fourth-best out of 33 qualified quarterbacks. This metric is intended to capture a quarterback’s accuracy independent of the expected difficulty of his passes, so it shows that Smith has just been flat-out sharp.
Raw completion percentage (where Smith ranks fifth at 68.9%) is best to ignore when separating players from their scheme, as a scheme predicated on quicker, easier passes can inflate completion percentage (and vice versa if the scheme calls for more deep passes), but CPOE is a more talent-based metric, so this shows that the Jets and their coaches have enjoyed legitimately excellent accuracy from Smith.
Elite accuracy is a definitive example of a player impacting the game beyond the scheme.
This extends to the pass-catching corps, where the Jets have witnessed some tremendous execution.
Garrett Wilson has been unbelievable to begin the year. He owns a catch rate over expected of 15.2%, per NFL Pro, the best mark among the 25 wide receivers with at least 40 targets. This metric, like CPOE, adjusts the player’s execution for expectations, so it helps us understand how much of an impact he makes beyond what is schemed up for him. Yet again, the Jets are benefiting from high-level talent.
Led by Wilson, the entire pass-catching unit has performed quite well. According to Pro Football Focus, the Jets as a team have combined for 10 drops and a 16-of-27 performance on contested targets (59.3%). That’s less than two drops per game, while securing nearly six out of every 10 “fifty-fifty balls”.
Again, that’s talent, not something that can be schemed up.
This extends to the running back position, where Braelon Allen has ascended to new heights over the last two weeks. Allen leads the NFL with 14 missed tackles forced since Week 5, three more than any other player. His elusiveness has kept the Jets’ run game afloat over a stretch during which he rushed for only 9 yards before contact, compared to 185 yards after contact.
Talent.
The offensive line is the one area where the Jets have not witnessed the best execution, as the unit has fallen off hard after a rough start. The loss of left guard Dylan Parham has sent them into a spiral.
At quarterback and the skill positions, though, the Jets have played host to same of the best individual execution metrics in the sport. Yet… they rank 25th in points per drive (1.77).
That disparity has to fall on the coaching staff, particularly the play-calling of offensive coordinator Frank Reich.
It’s easy to point to the moments that caused such a disparity. The Jets’ repeated shotgun runs in critical fourth-and-1 situations come to mind: late against the Packers in Week 2 and again on an early drive against the Patriots in Week 6.
There’s also Reich’s low usage of play action despite Smith’s immense success with it, and his low usage of motion compared to the league average in the modern NFL.
Simple addition and subtraction reveals that coaching is primarily to blame for the Jets’ offensive rankings. The talent is there for this unit to be far more productive. Unfortunately, the coaching staff is causing the whole to be less than the sum of the parts.
Does this apply on defense, though?
Interestingly, not nearly as much. Defensive play-caller Aaron Glenn has had to navigate some difficult execution issues, particularly up front.
One of the main issues is how easily the Jets’ defensive line has been blown off the ball in the run game. You consistently see the Jets’ linemen giving up multiple yards of push off the line of scrimmage, especially the defensive tackles, although edge rushers Will McDonald and David Bailey are not off the hook, either.
The Jets are allowing the league’s seventh-highest rushing success rate at 42.5%, per RBSDM, which is an indicator of the defensive line’s inability to consistently hold their ground at the line of scrimmage and stuff runs before they get multiple yards downfield.
New York is a more respectable 19th in yards per rush attempt allowed (4.2), a disparity that can be credited to the solid second-level tackling of the secondary to prevent home-run plays from developing. But the defensive line’s softness is hard for Glenn to work around.
The fact that Glenn blitzes at a high rate (36.0%) shows that he is even trying to help the run defense by sending more bodies into the box, but the players just aren’t holding up sturdily enough.
Glenn also has to deal with a lack of pass-rush juice. The Jets are 31st in pass-rush win rate at 7.4%, per Pro Football Focus, which is a solid metric to isolate the pass rushers’ ability to win one-on-one reps from pressures and sacks that were generated by blitzes, coverage, or being unblocked.
Despite their 31st-ranked pass-rush win rate, the Jets are seventh in sack rate (8.1%). That disparity is actually a huge feather in Glenn’s cap, as it shows that he is finding ways to scheme up sacks despite his players rarely ever winning on their own. This is very Rex Ryan-esque.
The one thing that can be said Glenn has going for him is a secondary that has been impressive, as the Jets rank eighth-best in PFF’s coverage grade (69.5). However, even this can be attributed to Glenn.
It’s not as if the Jets rank that highly in coverage production because their players have been racking up flashy interceptions and pass breakups that can be attributed to individual talent. New York is actually just 26th in passes defended (22).
Rather, the Jets rank that highly in coverage grade primarily because of how infrequently they allow big plays; they are third-best with just 3.8 completions for 15+ yards allowed per game. This is a credit to Glenn. The unit consistently shows cohesion and communication in the back end, helping to keep everything in front of them in the pass game. That reflects positively on the coaching.
Not to mention, multiple players are exceeding expectations in the secondary. Safety Dane Belton is having a breakout year, second-year corner Azareye’h Thomas is emerging as a quality starter after being chosen in the third round last year, and sixth-year veteran Brandon Stephens is having arguably the best season of his career.
Across the board, the Jets’ defensive production seems to be more of a credit to Glenn than the talent on the field.
So, Glenn deserves credit for his work as a defensive coordinator. As a head coach, though, he has found ways to subtract from the team’s chances of victory.
Game-management issues have plagued Glenn once again after he received plenty of flak for them in his first season. It is well-known throughout Jetsland by now that Glenn has been outscored 100-6 in the final two minutes of either half since he was hired last season, and that falls squarely on his shoulders.
From failing to use timeouts properly, to the Jets looking unprepared for key fourth-down situations, to the defense getting cooked in two-minute situations, to the offense giving up sacks in hurry-up situations, Glenn never steals or prevents those end-of-half points that often prove to be the difference in the final score.
To Glenn’s credit, his go-or-kick decisions have become prudent. He’s aggressive when it makes sense, but not recklessly so. There hasn’t been much to complain about this season in that regard.
However, the Jets’ lack of preparedness in the final two minutes is apparent. It shows that on both sides of the ball, New York’s coaches struggle to adjust on the fly. They can cook up solid game plans and are often productive out of halftime after getting a chance to reflect and adjust, but when the game turns into an instinctive, improvisational chess match between two coaches, the Jets’ play-callers are overmatched on both sides of the ball.
Not to mention, the botched early-half timeouts and strange end-of-half clock management continue to cost the Jets valuable time that could be used to score and prevent points.
Takeaways
Overall, it’s clear that the Jets’ talent outweighs their coaching. It isn’t this black-and-white across all aspects of the team, but in totality, the talent is adding more to the team than the leaders tasked with optimizing that talent.
Offensively, the talent-versus-coaching disparity is quite clear. The Jets’ offensive success this season has largely been predicated upon individual execution over savvy play-calling, whether it’s Smith’s precise passing, Wilson’s incredible play, the general reliability of the pass-catchers, or Allen’s elusiveness. Reich’s suboptimal play-calling choices are holding the Jets back from earning the results that you would expect based on the sum of their parts.
Defensively, it’s a much a different story. Glenn has actually had to deal with quite a few obstacles, but he’s found ways to deliver production that exceeds the sum of the parts.
However, Glenn gives that value back in the game-management department.
Glenn also is not off the hook for the offensive issues. He fired Tanner Engstrand and hired Reich. Most importantly, at the end of the day, he is the head coach, so he still has a say in the offensive game plan.
When you mix it all together, it would appear that the Jets have the talent of a team that should be around .500, implying that the coaching staff has probably subtracted about one victory to this point. We’ll see how that equation shapes itself over the next 11 games.
Based on what we’ve seen from the Jets’ individual players so far, it seems fair to expect that this team should be capable of approaching the eight-win mark (entailing a 6-5 finish) by season’s end if the coaching catches up to the talent; this is an arbitrary estimation, but it helps quantify the conclusions we’ve come to.
If the Jets fall well short of that bar—assuming the talent keeps playing to the same level and the team does not deal with significant injuries—it would be an indictment of the coaching staff.
