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.

2. Dalvin Cook is washed up

I’ll admit — I was a strong supporter of the Jets signing Dalvin Cook during the summer as an added boost to the roster. My mindset was this: when you have Rodgers and a Super Bowl-caliber defense, you make any moves that upgrade the offense, whatever the cost.

I also felt that Cook was a serious upgrade over what we all saw from Michael Carter last year and rookie Israel Abanikanda. Through two games, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Cook has been nothing short of disappointing and bordering on disastrous.

I’m not sure what the root cause of the problem is, but I think it’s best explained by a myriad of causes. Cook spent the entire offseason without a team, traveling, preparing for the birth of his child, and taking free-agent visits.

Not only does he not know the offense enough, but he also isn’t in shape yet to be a lead workload back. On top of that, his comments after the Rodgers injury bothered me, as it appeared he joined the Jets expecting to be carried to the Super Bowl and is now disappointed he might have to work for it.

From a numbers perspective, Cook has run the ball 17 times for 40 yards, good for 2.4 yards per carry, and caught all four targets for 40 yards. That’s 21 total touches for 80 yards, or less than four yards per touch. He also lost a crucial fumble against Dallas and ran for -6 rushing yards over expected.

So far this season, Cook has -1.7 rushing yards over expected PER CARRY — the fourth-worst mark in the entire league. Not only has he not been good, he has been downright awful.

This is a four-time Pro Bowler we are talking about — a guy who ran for over 1,100 yards just last year and over 1,100 yards in each of the last four seasons. He has 40 rushing yards total this season.

It became evident at the end of last year that Cook lacked the burst he once possessed to hit holes quickly before the defense could adjust. He still has the open-field elusiveness to make guys miss, but he just can’t seem to get to that open field this year.

RELATED: It's time for the NY Jets to end the Dalvin Cook experiment

The fumble against the Cowboys was back-breaking. Down 21-10, Cook took a carry to the left side, got blown up in the backfield, and lost the ball. Dallas drained another three minutes off the clock and added a field goal.

In terms of advanced stats, Cook ranks as 41/45 in PFF rushing grade, 40/45 in yards per carry, 36/45 in yards after contact, 25/45 in elusiveness, and 41/45 in rushing yards over expected.

If this persists, Michael Carter needs to get more carries. Cook is gone after the year anyway. It appears that the Jets bought into the hype and not the player they were getting so far.

3. Jeremy Ruckert needs to play more

This might seem rash, but I'm tired of watching C.J. Uzomah play football. His usage has been bizarre this year. The Jets line him up wide regularly despite the fact he can't get open while Mecole Hardman doesn’t play. They ask him to block despite being graded as one of the worst blocking tight ends in football by PFF.

On Cook’s fumble on Sunday, Uzomah not only missed a block on MicahParsons, who made the play and the recovery, but he then stayed on the ground watching Parsons recover the ball and scamper to the endzone.

Uzomah has zero catches, zero targets, and zero yards so far. He offers nothing in the run game. What exactly is his use?

Lucky for the Jets, the solution to this problem is really simple. Jeremy Ruckert happens to be the best run-blocking tight end in football this year. Ruckert’s PFF run block grade of 86.1 has been the highest for any tight end in football so far.

On Breece Hall’s 86-yard run against the Bills, Ruckert flattened the linebacker, pursuing the ball to spring the run into the secondary. He also sprinted down the field, blocking the chasing safety to keep him from making the play.

He only played five snaps against Dallas, and still, in one of them, he took a nickel cornerback out of the screen, driving him 15 yards down the field. He needs more playing time.

After this year, Uzomah is gone and Ruckert will be called upon to take on a bigger role anyway. Why not let him develop now?

4. The NY Jets defense still struggles situationally

This one hurts to mention, but it is still so true. The biggest problem with the Jets defense last year was their inability to create turnovers. I forget the exact stat and can’t seem to find it, but I believe the Jets set the record for most fumbles forced and least recovered last season.

To make matters worse, despite having arguably the best duo of cornerbacks in the league, neither seems to ever intercept the ball. Sauce Gardner and D.J. Reed finished with a total of three interceptions last season. It simply isn’t good enough.

After a huge Week 1 performance that saw Jordan Whitehead intercept three passes and the defense recover a crucial Josh Allen fumble, it was back to the 2022 Jets on Sunday.

After pinning Dallas deep, already down 7-0, CeeDee Lamb took a slant 31 yards before Gardner forced a fumble. Despite five Jets defenders being within two yards of the ball, the Cowboys center sprinted down the field to fall on it. It would have set the Jets up with a short field early on with an opportunity to tie the game early at 7-7.

Two drives later, on a second and short, Dak Prescott pumped and threw to the flat late. Gardner jumped the route and got both hands on the ball without any contact. Despite this, he dropped the ball, or else he could have crawled to the endzone.

It was a game-changing play. Instead of a 14-10 Jets lead, Prescott and the Cowboys would drive the length of the field and score, plus get the two-point conversion, and take an 18-7 lead.

Even more so than just the missed turnovers, the Jets fail to make the plays that need to be made. On the opening drive, facing a 3rd and 6, Prescott avoided what should have been a sack, scrambled for 15 yards, and picked up a first down. They then scored a touchdown three plays later.

On the same drive, Gardner dropped the interception, but the Jets still forced a third-down incompletion after a beautiful Michael Carter II pass breakup. Unfortunately, a roughing the passer call extended the drive and led to a touchdown after two more crucial Jets defensive penalties.

This defense is supposed to be special. Robert Saleh and his unit believe they could be one of the best. Best-ever defenses don’t make those mistakes.

They changed the game. The defense didn’t lose the game, and the Cowboys' offense is really good, but they certainly didn’t help themselves either.

5- Zach Wilson is still a work in progress

Another tough write-up, but Zach Wilson's day on Sunday was so up-and-down it's hard to evaluate.

The fanbase and media love to jump down Wilson's throat and throw him under the bus, but Sunday's loss was not on the former No. 2 overall pick. I don't even think Aaron Rodgers would win that game. The talent and execution differential on Sunday was enormous all over the field.

But it was a tale of two halves for Wilson. Early on, despite the Jets' struggles to run the ball effectively, Wilson managed to find Garrett Wilson over the middle on a beautifully thrown ball through traffic for a 68-yard touchdown. It was as good a throw as anyone could make.

Later in the half, he led a picture-perfect two-minute drive. He got the ball out quickly and made quick decisions to tuck and run once the pressure closed around him, picking up 34 yards on just four carries.

It would have ended in a touchdown had Wilson's arm not gotten hit as he threw and capped off probably the best drive for Wilson since his rookie year.

It was tough to evaluate Wilson after this point, as the Jets struggled in every way from that point on. The offensive line completely fell apart, Dalvin Cook fumbled, and the next meaningful time Wilson got the ball, it was already 24-10 at the end of the third quarter.

Once the game was out of reach, Wilson reverted to his old self, forcing the ball into double coverage, sloppy footwork, bailing too early on pressure, and seeming completely rattled and flustered.

Before that fourth quarter, though, he was good. Honestly, he was good. He was composed. The footwork was the best I have ever seen with him. The decision-making was better, and he was hitting the easy ones. No, the stats don't help his case, but from a purely football and confidence standpoint, Wilson was much better from when we last saw him.

Again, it's hard for any quarterback to succeed when a team is only rushing four guys and getting a 54 percent pressure rate like Dallas was. That allowed the Cowboys to drop seven guys in coverage, take away any space, and also force him to throw before he wanted to. It was a terrible situation.

The Jets' recipe for success is not for Zach Wilson to dominate the game with 300 passing yards and multiple touchdowns. The key is to run the ball well, which they did not do at all, and allow Wilson to complete safe and easy throws on short yardage downs and distance.

When the offensive line cannot block a soul, and the running game finished with 28 yards rushing, Wilson is going to look like he did in that fourth quarter.

I'd like to see Wilson shake this one off and play well against New England. If the Jets can run the ball and Hackett can craft easy completions for Wilson to get his confidence rolling again, I think Wilson can seriously win games with the Jets this year.