Jets defense flashes encouraging signs under Chris Harris despite imperfect day

So there you have it, folks, Steve Wilks was everything that was wrong with the New York Jets' defense. No, not really. This is still a unit that is banged up and was largely devoid of talent before the injury wave truly hit. With that said, there were some noticeable improvements in the team's first game under interim defensive coordinator Chris Harris.

The box score might not show it. The 29-6 defeat saw the Jets surrender 412 total yards, of which 328 came through the air. Considering the opponent, the lowly New Orleans Saints, that all looks pretty bad.

And while that's all very true, trying to decipher whether or not Harris did a good job involves separating what he could do schematically from the talent, or lack thereof, that he had at his disposal. To that end, especially in the first half, there wasn't too much to complain about.

The Jets' much-maligned defense shows some positive signs in Chris Harris's first game

In the Jets' previous two matchups against the Miami Dolphins and the Jacksonville Jaguars, the defense had no answer for the play-action pass, which both teams essentially spammed them with to move down the field with ease.

Those games showed just how badly the Jets had been out-schemed, with Miami and Jacksonville both ranking in the bottom half of the league in play-action utilization, but clearly recognizing a weakness in the Jets' ability to identify and respond to the run fakes.

New Orleans, on the other hand, ranks seventh in the NFL in play-action utilization, and at least in the first half, the Jets shut down that attack, allowing just nine points.

Up to that point, you saw the Jets pull off several key stops, such as the fourth-down conversion attempt in the second quarter that saw Jamien Sherwood read the play perfectly and leap over the line to bring down Taysom Hill short of the marker.

Speaking of Sherwood, he was one of several players who had a rough day in Week 15 against the Jaguars, coming in at a 55.3 Pro Football Focus grade in that matchup, and showed marked improvement against New Orleans, posting a 77.6 mark, which is his second-highest graded performance of the year.

Elsewhere, you saw depth players like Qwan'tez Stiggers in perfect coverage and making big plays, coming away with two pass breakups.

More importantly, you saw continuous adjustments throughout the game, showing that Harris had control of the situation. Ultimately, New Orleans' veterans proved to be too much for the Jets to overcome, and the Saints pulled away in the second half.

Still, it's the preparation and awareness that mattered most. We saw that with the communication amongst the players on the field. It was evident when Harris lined up his defensive ends to help cover the receivers with time ticking down in the first half to prevent New Orleans from picking up yardage via the quick out. That kind of stuff shows how a defensive coordinator can impact a game, even with subpar talent at his disposal.

Whether or not Harris will get a real shot at earning the defensive coordinator job permanently is still unclear. It will certainly take more than one half of good defensive performance to win the brass over.

But if he can build on that and show the same sort of preparation and adjustment skills while winning the players over in the last two weeks of the season, he might become a legitimate contender for the role.

Like everything else in this lost season, it will be something else to watch for as we keep one eye firmly trained on 2026.