Overview of the Jets 2017 regular season
By Carson Hathaway
The 2017 regular season of the New York Jets has concluded. Here is what we should we take away from the recent season.
Let’s start with the most important position in football: the quarterback. The New York Jets got far better QB play out of a 38-year-old Josh McCown than anyone expected. Before his season-ending injury, McCown was on pace to throw for 21 touchdowns, 11 interceptions, and over 3,600 yards. McCown wasn’t the only pleasant surprise in the Jets passing game.
In just his second season in the league, Robby Anderson had 941 yards and seven touchdowns. We should expect him to be a part of the Jets future. Yet another pleasant surprise came from Jermaine Kearse. In his first season as a Jet, Kearse posted a career-high 810 receiving yards and five touchdowns.
The Jets as a team ranked 19th in rushing yards per game and 20th in rushing yards per attempt. Bilal Powell is definitely a good complementary back, but you wouldn’t really want him leading a team. Matt Forte showed signs of decline this season, while 6th round rookie Elijah McGuire provided very little outside of his big run in Week 4 against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
The Jets defensive line did not live up to expectations this season, as the team ranked 28th in the NFL in total sacks. Leonard Williams didn’t improve the way he did his first two seasons, and there’s serious doubt about Muhammad Wilkerson’s future with the team.
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A bright spot about this season was the two rookie safeties: Jamal Adams and Marcus Maye. We should expect these two to be the future Jets safeties for many years to come because their potential to be great is extremely high.
Overall, a 5-11 record is obviously nothing to brag about, but you can’t be that angry about it when you consider that many thought this team wouldn’t win a single game.
The Jets fought hard this year and showed no quit throughout the season. That is a great sign when you consider just a year ago the Jets showed serious signs of lack of effort and there were rumors of a divided locker room. Luckily, that wasn’t the case as the team showcased playing for each other and doing whatever it takes to win football games together.
What does the offseason have in store for the Jets? Only time will tell.