5 overreaction takeaways from the NY Jets Week 2 loss to the Cowboys

We are now through two weeks of NY Jets football, with the Jets sitting at a 1-1 record. With all of the attention last week on Aaron Rodgers’s injury, many fans and media members failed to really react to what was seen on the field during the win. 

Following Sunday's loss, though, fans and the media are quick to react — and mostly overreact — to the Jets' loss. Below, I evaluate five takeaways from Sunday's game and the first two weeks of the Jets season so far.

1. The concern about the NY Jets offensive line was justified

All offseason long, fans and the media argued that the Jets needed to do more to keep Aaron Rodgers protected and upright and invest more heavily in the offensive line.

The belief going into draft night was that the Jets were aiming to draft an offensive tackle with their first-round pick, only to have them all off the board by the time they drafted. They failed to make any splash moves for big names like David Bakhtiari or Orlando Brown Jr., although they did offer Brown a big contract he turned down.

All summer, the group struggled to stay healthy and never played together in practice or games due to 38-year-old left tackle Duane Brown recovering from injury and a banged-up interior line that saw both Laken Tomlinson and Alijah Vera-Tucker miss time.

Mekhi Becton, the former first-round pick himself, worked his way to be the starting right tackle after a snap count restriction all preseason and hesitancy towards playing right tackle.

Nonetheless, it has not been a good start at all for the group. Against the Buffalo Bills, on Rodgers' first three dropbacks, he was hit on every single one, including the sack that resulted in his torn Achilles.

Additionally, the run game, outside of spectacular 83 and 26-yard runs from Breece Hall, has been lacking, to say the least. Against Buffalo and outside of the two long runs from Hall, the Jets ran 26 times for 63 yards. That’s barely two yards per carry.

Things got much worse against Dallas. The advanced stats that have come out after the game paint a better picture of just how bad the unit was.

Dallas only brought four rushers on 24 of the 30 Jets pass plays (80% of plays). They still pressured Wilson on 13 of those plays (54% pressure rate). Wilson, expectedly, was just 2-of-13 on plays when he was pressured. Wilson is the worst quarterback in the league when under pressure over the last three seasons.

To make matters worse, in terms of pass-block win rate, tackles Mekhi Becton and Duane Brown graded out as the 47th and 54th rated tackles out of 54, respectively. Guards Alijah Vera-Tucker and Laken Tomlinson graded out as 36th and 45th out of 56 qualified, and center Connor McGovern finished dead last — 27th out of 27.

Finally, to really drive the point home, the Jets offense mustered only 16 rushing attempts for 64 yards against Dallas, just 4.0 yards per carry. Zach Wilson was responsible for five carries for 36 yards and everyone else ran 10 times for 28 yards. That’s bad.

Dallas is really good defensively, but the strength of this offense is supposed to be the rushing game with Breece Hall and Dalvin Cook. Outside of the two long Breece Hall runs, the Jets are now at 42 carries for just 127 yards, just 3.02 yards per carry. Take away Wilson’s impressive performance, and it’s even worse — 37 carries for 91 yards, just 2.46 yards per carry.

Whether we are talking about this year or next year, once Rodgers returns, this unit needs to play better. No team can be successful when everyone on the offensive line is below average. Outside of Alijah Vera-Tucker, everyone should be replaceable this year and this offseason.