When you’re 0-3 in the NFL, your season is already on the line.

This is not MLB, or even the NBA. While it may “only” be three games, it represents 18% of a 17-game schedule. That’s the equivalent of an 0-15 start in basketball, or an 0-29 start in baseball.

Starting 0-3 should be enough of a sample to prompt major changes before the season gets out of hand.

The New York Jets, however, do not seem very desperate despite their winless start. That patience is partially justified due to the fact that a new, inexperienced regime is still getting its feet wet.

However, the Jets are ignoring some obvious avenues to improve their chances of winning games. New regime or not, any coaching staff should be making these moves.

It is unlikely that New York makes any of the following changes at the moment, but nonetheless, here are the moves that should be made.

Bench Micheal Clemons for (anyone)

The Jets’ insistence that they cannot do better than Micheal Clemons has reached an indefensible point.

While it would be hyperbolic to claim Clemons is the “worst” NFL player, it might not be a stretch to say he has been the worst-performing player in the league relative to his position this season.

Across 110 defensive snaps, here is the production Clemons has accumulated through three games:

  • Twice as many penalties (2) as pressures (1)
  • Twice as many missed tackles (2) as solo tackles (1)
  • 0 sacks
  • 0 QB hits
  • Jets run defense with Clemons on field: 5.5 YPC allowed
  • Jets run defense with Clemons off field: 2.7 YPC allowed

With numbers like that, is it a stretch to say that New York’s defense would be better off going 10 on 11?

Clemons is twice as likely to do something negative as he is to do something positive. That is absolutely inexcusable at a position like defensive end, where it’s pretty rare to commit “negative” plays. We’re not talking about a cornerback here.

Last week, head coach Aaron Glenn defended Clemons by claiming he is helping the team beyond his stats.

“Sometimes when people, when they don’t see a stat, they feel like a player hasn’t done anything right,” Glenn said of Clemons. “But there’s other things that go on in the game that we ask players to do — that, again, that people really don’t understand.”

In fairness to Glenn, he has a point regarding the importance of off-the-stat-sheet contributions for defensive linemen. Some fans will knock a player just because he doesn’t get enough sacks or tackles (i.e. Quinnen Williams at times) despite the player actually making a much greater impact than his box score suggests.

In this case, though, Clemons does not offer any sort of positive impact beyond the box score.

Applying pressure on the quarterback is the No. 1 area where a defensive lineman can be impactful without making a mark in the box score. Well, in that category, Clemons has generated just one pressure on 54 pass-rush snaps this season, which is practice squad-level play for an NFL edge rusher. His 1.6% pressure rate is less than one-sixth of the 2025 league average for edge rushers (11.6%).

Defensive linemen can also make a subtle impact in the run game by executing their assignments to tee up run stuffs for teammates. Well, Clemons doesn’t offer that, either. If his brutal film wasn’t enough to prove this point, it can be proven by the stark on-off splits of the Jets’ run defense with him on the field (5.5 YPC allowed) and off of it (2.7 YPC allowed).

In Sunday’s loss to Tampa Bay, Clemons committed a 15-yard penalty for the second consecutive week, bringing his career penalty total to 10.

As Glenn searches for ways to spark his 0-3 team, he could not ask for an easier player to make an example of. Clemons has been committing killer penalties for four years and continues to make the same mistakes at 28 years old. Since he has no production to justify playing in spite of those penalties, Glenn can easily send Clemons packing to deliver a message of accountability to his fledgling team.

The Jets will claim they can’t do any better than Clemons, so he has to play by default. My response would be: Is it really that difficult to find an edge rusher who generates no pressure and struggles against the run, but at least doesn’t commit any penalties? That would still be an upgrade, and the Jets would benefit from the message of standards and accountability sent by releasing Clemons.

This should be the Jets’ most obvious move, but we will likely see plenty more of No. 72 costing the Jets games throughout the season.

Bench Brandon Stephens for Azareye’h Thomas

The Jets took a risk by signing Brandon Stephens as their replacement for D.J. Reed. Stephens allowed the second-most yards among cornerbacks in 2024. New York was banking on him taking a major leap to justify his three-year, $36 million deal.

Three games in, there are no signs of Stephens being any different than the player who coughed up more yards than all but one NFL cornerback last year.

Stephens is tied for the NFL lead with three touchdowns allowed in coverage. He has allowed 73.3% of passes thrown his way to be completed, while only recording one pass deflection. Toss in a dropped interception, a pass interference penalty, and a missed tackle, and there isn’t much there to suggest he is a starting-caliber NFL player.

In the Jets’ latest loss, Stephens ceded a touchdown to Mike Evans. While Evans will beat plenty of great NFL corners for touchdowns, Stephens inexcusably ceded the inside to Evans on a goal-line slant, allowing him to make a routine catch that would have felt unusually easy if it happened in practice.

Meanwhile, third-round rookie Azareye’h Thomas showed flashes of potential in his first extended appearance at cornerback.

When Sauce Gardner exited the game to be evaluated for a concussion, Thomas stepped in to play 10 defensive snaps, and he came up big as the Jets pursued a second-half comeback. Tampa Bay challenged Thomas twice across six snaps in coverage, and he forced both passes to fall incomplete, including a clutch pass breakup on a red-hot Emeka Egbuka as the Bucs pursued a game-winning field goal.

It took Thomas 10 snaps to put a better rep on film than anything Stephens has shown in his 203 snaps this year.

It is doubtful that New York will bench Stephens for Thomas this week, but the clock is ticking fast. Unless Stephens starts forging a stark turnaround, it will be time for the Jets to confront the sunk cost fallacy.

“The phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial.”

The money New York spent on Stephens is already gone. They cannot allow him to continue struggling in hopes that he starts justifying the investment. If he’s bad, he’s bad. Admit your defeat and switch to the better alternative.

I would make the switch now, but I am admittedly biased, as I was already skeptical of the Stephens signing from the beginning. Stephens will start this week. But what if he makes it to four consecutive struggling starts against an 0-3 Dolphins team?

From there, the Jets would be out of excuses.