This crazy stat from Week 11 should impact the NY Jets in Week 12

It definitely looked like the NY Jets gave up before the final whistle in Buffalo last week. Despite all of the losses that had occurred in Robert Saleh’s tenure as a head coach (15-29), all of his players seemed to play hard for him and buy into the philosophy.

There has been some malcontent on the offensive side of the ball (i.e. Elijah Moore, Denzel Mims), but that never bled onto the other side of the field.

Last week, the body language and level of play from the defense just seemed like a team that had given up all hope. As a result, they lost by the largest deficit they’ve suffered all year and the most points allowed in 32 games.

Please take a moment to realize how crazy that is — I was astonished when I was looking up the previous scores and had to go all the way back to Week 13 of the 2021 season to find an opposing score of 32 or more.

Has Robert Saleh lost control of the NY Jets locker room?

In Week 2 of both years of the Sauce Gardner era, the defense allowed exactly 30 points, but up until last week, they had not allowed another team to score 30 in any other week.

32 points is a career-worst for Gardner and Jermaine Johnson. (Not so-) Fun fact, the Jets lost the next games following both of those 30-point allowances.

They also lost in Week 14 of 2021, the game after they allowed the Philadelphia Eagles to score 33 in Week 13. So, if history is any indication, this will be a loss. The key here is keeping the margin respectable and proving to themselves (and preferably us, too) that this season isn’t lost.

I’m sure we all love Aaron Rodgers’s unwavering faith in this snake-bitten franchise, but unfortunately, we are at the point where actions speak much louder than words right now.

Will this team rally around Tim Boyle and miraculously look like an offense? I do not think Boyle is in for a Mike White game because, in my opinion, Mike White is a far better signal caller than these three current Jets QBs. But how will all three phases of the game bounce back from such an embarrassing and shell-shocking loss?

Winning this game to bring the Dolphins to 7-4 and the Jets to 5-6 wouldn’t save the season, but it would be a serious step in the right direction if a division title is supposed to be in reach.

Falling to 4-7 and letting the Dolphins run away to 8-3 will put the nail in the coffin for that notion and force the Jets to earn a wild card spot in a race against a few teams that they’ve already lost the tiebreaker against.

Let's see if the locker room has truly been lost, or if in these five days, the locker room will be found.