Jets' offensive line wasn’t nearly as bad as Brady Cook made it look in Week 16

The New York Jets suffered their third consecutive loss by 20 or more points in Week 16, falling 29–6 to a previously four-win New Orleans Saints team on Sunday. Undrafted rookie quarterback Brady Cook made his second career start, and it went about as poorly as could have been expected.

Cook finished 22-of-35 for 188 yards and an interception, and while the box score doesn’t look egregiously bad, the film and advanced metrics tell a very different story.

The UDFA rookie was sacked a whopping eight times in Sunday’s loss as he struggled to do much of anything against a less-than-stellar Saints defense. On the surface, most would assume that means the Jets’ offensive line — arguably the roster’s biggest strength — had a poor game. But that wasn’t really the case.

Of course, this was far from a perfect day for the Jets’ offensive line. In fact, it was likely one of the unit’s weaker run-blocking performances of the season. But when it comes to pass protection, the showing wasn’t nearly as bad as the raw numbers suggest.

Brady Cook was to blame for most of the Jets' offensive line struggles in Week 16

The raw sack total from Sunday paints a misleading picture of how the Jets’ offensive line actually performed. According to Pro Football Focus, the unit was credited with allowing just two sacks and seven total pressures in Week 16.

That’s a perfectly acceptable pass-protection showing by almost any standard, especially against a Saints defense that hasn’t exactly been terrorizing quarterbacks this season.

The disconnect, however, comes when you look at what happened once pressure arrived. Cook was sacked eight times on just 11 total defensive pressures, resulting in a staggering 72.7 percent pressure-to-sack rate for the game. For context, that number is alarmingly high.

Over the course of the season, Cook’s pressure-to-sack rate sits at 53.1 percent, which is by far the worst among all 69 quarterbacks to appear in a game in 2025. In other words, more than half the time Cook has been pressured this year, the play has ended in a sack.

That isn’t an offensive line problem — it’s a quarterback problem. Cook has now been sacked 17 times on just 32 total pressures this season. To put that into perspective, Los Angeles Rams star Matthew Stafford has been sacked 19 times all year despite facing 172 pressures.

The difference comes down to pocket awareness, internal clock, and feel for pressure, which are all areas where Cook has consistently struggled. Cook’s pocket navigation has been dreadful, with little ability to slide, climb, or get rid of the ball before trouble arrives.

Even when protection holds up initially, plays too often break down because he doesn’t sense pressure until it’s too late. The result is an inflated sack total that unfairly reflects on an offensive line that, at least in pass protection, did its job.

It's a similar issue to the one the Jets faced earlier in the year when Justin Fields was starting. Fields' inability to throw the football led to inflated sack and pressure numbers, although his pressure-to-sack rate of 23.3% (while still quite bad!) is less than half of Cook's.

This is the cost of evaluation. The Jets are likely to continue starting Cook moving forward, but don’t be fooled by misleading sack and pressure totals if the offense continues to struggle. Chances are, the quarterback will bear more responsibility than anyone else.