NY Jets offense has an opportunity to bounce back against the Raiders

If only finding the end zone was as easy as opening the Find My iPhone app. Perhaps then the NY Jets would be able to avoid being (once again) at the bottom of the barrel of NFL offenses this season.

You may know all the stats, but here’s a huge one: In the last five seasons, only four teams have scored eight or fewer touchdowns through eight games — the 2019 Jets, the 2020 Jets, the 2023 Giants, and the 2023 Jets.

Now, of course, this team is only responsible for this current year — no one playing meaningful minutes in 2023 was even on the team in 2019 — but what they’ve done this year is horrible.

They’ve spent the majority of the year ranked 32nd in passing yards per game and red-zone touchdown percentage and are currently the worst third-down converting team in the history of the NFL.

Even on third-and-short, the Jets have proven to be more ineffective at gaining three yards than any offense in history. So, yes, they’re pretty bad.

I was confident last week that going against the league’s worst pass defense was going to make no difference to Zach Wilson because he is who he is. It would be very unwise to make the same assumption about Breece Hall.

The NY Jets offense must be better against the Raiders

The Raiders are one of only two teams who allow more rushing yards than the Jets, so this could quickly turn into a battle of who can bottle up the other team’s star running back more effectively.

If it does become that type of battle, it’s hard to bet against the phenom who was just leading the entire NFL in rushing yards per carry a few weeks ago.

Perhaps they should stop being more obvious when they are running (such as running every single first down, no matter what) and start getting more creative with how they run as well. Breece Hall is a home-run hitter who’s a threat to take it to the house every single time he touches the ball.

Although it didn’t quite come to fruition last week, two weeks ago he was able to take a pass from Zach Wilson that traveled two air yards all the way to the end zone from 50 yards out.

It just seems that Hall’s advantage over the Raiders' porous run defense is much greater than the advantage Jacobs may have over the Jets’ unit.

The big question is, will the Jets be able to turn the extra yardage into touchdowns? We’ve already seen games like the Broncos, where they reached the red zone five times and walked away with a field goal all five times.

The Raiders don’t figure to score a lot of points, so this might result in a win this week, but there needs to come a time when the Jets’ opportunities turn to paydirt.

For what it’s worth, the Raiders are the sixth-worst team in the NFL this season at stopping opposing teams from scoring touchdowns in the red zone.

If there was ever a time to right these wrongs in the red zone, it would be against a team that isn’t special offensively and already has established issues stopping touchdowns in the red zone. This could be the perfect storm to end the drought.