Yahoo Sports NFL analyst Matt Harmon and writer Charles McDonald discuss how much the New York Jets could improve with new head coach Aaron Glenn and quarterback Justin Fields. Hear the full conversation on “Football 301” – and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
Aaron Glenn in New York, I continue to be really fascinated about this whole experience, because I feel like for the first time in a minute here, there’s no expectations on this Jets team, and like, if I was a Jets fan, this is exactly where I’d want to live.
Like, nobody’s really talking about the Jets, nobody’s paying attention to them from a national perspective, but you’ve got a coach in here who seems serious, and I actually love the fact that he hired Steve Wilkes as the defensive coordinator because I think that’s just gonna keep Glenn as like kind of that, hey, I’m the CEO guy.
I touch a little bit of everything here.
You can also see his fingerprints on the offensive side of the ball, hiring Tanner Engstrand as a, as a passing corner.
He’s an unknown variable, but man, I just went back and charted Garrett Wilson for reception perception.
Almost anything is gonna be better than the design of that offense last year, right?
Like that was, that was rough and obviously.
It’s what Aaron wanted.
It’s gonna be a lot more condensed this year, I would guess, and I think they’re gonna run the ball a hell of a lot better with Fields under center, and obviously if Bruce Hall is healthy.
So I’m actually interested to watch this team on a week to week basis.
Like they might be like a an NFL pro team, right, where, hey, I, I go back and watch them on like Tuesday and Wednesday, and I’m interested to see what they’re doing even if they’re not putting it in the win column.
There’s gonna be some rough moments.
Justin Fields probably is what he is at this point.
I think Justin Fields could be like the perfect quarterback for this Bills of the Jets as they try to transition to what’s next.
If you got run game, you should have a good defense.
That’s gonna cause a lot of headaches and who knows, maybe you can even upset, uh, uh, a good team every now and then this season.
They were 17th in success rate last year, 21st in EPA per play on defense.
Like this was.
Statistics, and I mean it felt that way watching it, but you just kind of forget after the course of the summer that, oh yeah, like that wasn’t actively below average defense by the end of the season, like cumulatively.
Obviously it really fell off once they fired Robert Sala and promoted Jeff Ulbricht, but that’s a unit that could return to being a top.
10 form like that might be just enough for this team.
Again, not to be good, not to push for like a wild card spot, but just to be like annoying to play against.