The most disappointing part of the Jets’ loss to the 49ers

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – The Jets lost their opener to the 49ers 32-19 on Monday night. The team is now 0-1 for the fifth time in six years. Here are some thoughts and observations from the game:

1. From what I saw after the game and early Tuesday morning, I don’t think anyone is overreacting to this loss. Jets fans know who the 49ers are and that the Jets lost to a very good team. This game gave no reason to believe the Jets can’t win 10 more games this season.

And here’s the disappointing part: This was a chance for the Jets to show that they really are among the best in the NFL. Everyone has been praising this roster for months, and some people are predicting a Super Bowl appearance for this team. On Monday night, however, they didn’t look like they were in that class.

Even if this game had been close, it would have felt like the Jets had arrived in the top tier of the NFL. Now there are still questions – not if they can still be good, but how good. There’s a difference between predicting they’ll sneak into the playoffs and predicting they’ll play or win in the Super Bowl. In my opinion, the Jets still have a long way to go to be ranked in the class of the 49ers, Chiefs and Ravens.

The Jets’ schedule changes now. Instead of a tough test, they now have three games in a row where they are not expected to be tested. The Jets’ defense had a bad night on Monday. They should quickly improve against those three opponents. The Titans scored 17 points against the Bears in Week 1 and quarterback Will Levis was a poor performer. The Patriots pulled off an upset in Cincinnati but only scored 16 points. The Broncos start with rookie Bo Nix at quarterback and scored 20 points against the Seahawks.

Now it’s time for the Jets to beat weaker opponents. If they don’t, there will be bigger questions than where they stand in the NFL hierarchy.

2. The knee-jerk reaction to Monday’s loss is that the Jets really need Haason Reddick, but he remains out. I didn’t really see it that way. Reddick is a one-trick pony. He’s very good at that one trick, but he’s strictly a pass rusher. The Jets’ problem on Monday night wasn’t their pass rush. It was their leaky run defense. They failed to set the edge and didn’t do a good job of tackling.

The player the Jets were missing on Monday isn’t Reddick. It’s John Franklin-Myers, who quietly set the tone for this defensive line. The Jets traded Franklin-Myers to the Broncos after signing Reddick. They felt they couldn’t keep the two highly paid players on the team.

This is where the Reddick trade is the real damage to them. I would argue that Franklin-Myers would have helped them more against the 49ers than Reddick.

I’m sure the Jets defense will look a lot better without having to face Kyle Shanahan, Brock Purdy, Deebo Samuel, etc., but the run defense will be something to watch.

3. My conclusion on Aaron Rodgers’ 2024 debut: pretty good. It wasn’t spectacular and he definitely missed some throws, including the one that was intercepted. But overall, Rodgers showed signs of his old self. His touchdown pass was classic Rodgers, drawing the defense offside and then throwing the ball deep to Allen Lazard.

There was never a moment in the game where I felt like he looked immobile, but he didn’t have to move that much either. The truth is, everything about the Jets’ offense was hard to gauge because they only had 49 plays. I didn’t leave the game feeling better or worse about Rodgers. I expect magic from him and it wasn’t there Monday night, but that might be unreasonable to expect in his first full game in 20 months.

4. Coaches always stress the importance of possession just before and after halftime, and that was definitely the case Monday night. The 49ers held the ball for 12 minutes and 30 seconds on the two drives between halftime and halftime. They scored 10 points on those drives and essentially threw the Jets out of the game. The Jets offense stood helpless on the sideline waiting to get the ball back, and they just kept waiting.

The 49ers had four drives with 11 or more plays. It’s hard to win when you let the other team hold the ball that long. The Jets defense couldn’t get off the field and the Jets offense didn’t have many chances. This is the opposite of complementary football.

As I said above, I think that will change as the Jets move into the JV portion of their schedule. They may not play a better team all season than the one they faced on Monday night.

Insightful statistics

The Jets had the ball for a total of 6:21 out of 30 minutes in the second and third quarters.

Surprising number of snaps

We knew wide receiver Mike Williams would play a limited role in his first game back from an ACL injury, but that limited? He only played nine snaps in the game.

Play ball

Things didn’t go particularly well for the Jets in this game, but wide receiver Allen Lazard caught six balls for 89 yards and scored two touchdowns. He did have a third down drop on the first series, but it was still a nice rebounding game for Lazard after a difficult first season with the Jets.