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After Tyrod Taylor took over in the second half, he threw two costly interceptions to Carolina Panthers cornerback Jaycee Horn
I’ve never understood this with some teams.
If the other team has a gifted cornerback, why test him like this?
Both of the picks were throws to Jets #2 receiver Josh Reynolds, who was the #1 with Garrett Wilson is out.
And this is another reason not to make these throws?
Reynolds isn’t a bad player, but who thinks Reynolds against Horn is a good matchup for the Jets?
I asked Tyrod Taylor about this after the game. Believe it or not, there are actually some tough questions asked to Jets players and coaches after games. Not many, but some.
Me: Did you think about throwing away from Jaycee Horn’s side of the field?
Taylor: I’m going to go where the reads take me. I have nothing but tremendous trust in the guys that we have receiving the ball on this squad. Ultimately, Jaycee made two great play, he has been a great player in this League, but I don’t look at it from a stay away from a guy. I trust our guys to go out and make plays, but I’m always going to go where the
read takes me.
He answered the question respectfully, but I don’t agree with the concept of just going through progressions and throwing it wherever.
And it certainly looked like on these two plays, Reynolds was probably the first read since these were both deep shots.
It’s like when you see a matchup that favors you, a standout receiver against, let’s say, a journeyman or rookie cornerback, you go after that matchup.
Like on the play that the Panthers iced the game.
On third and eight from their own 45, Andy Dalton saw the matchup of Xavier Legette on rookie cornerback Azareye’h Thomas, perhaps checked at the line, and threw a deep ball down the right sideline that the Panthers’ 2024 first-round pick hauled in for a 33-yard catch. Game over.
A big part of winning the NFL chess match on Sunday is taking advantage of favorable matchups.
Horn on Reynolds is not a matchup that favors the Jets.
Don’t go there . . .
The Jets’ offense scored nine points last week (they got to 11 with a safety) and six points this week.
So I asked Aaron Glenn after the game, another case of a rare tough question to the coach in the #1 media market, about what he thought of the offensive play-calling the last two weeks.
You know what, I thought he might bristle at me, but he absolutely didn’t:
“That’s a good question,” Glenn said. “The thing is, you have to look at the situation in the games and I know a lot of people will go into that because they want to point fingers somewhere. But that’s not what we’re going to do at all. It goes both ways, and it goes I’ll say three ways: Me, Tanner (Engstrand), and our players. And we all have to figure out what we have to do to make some plays.”
Look, obviously, the OC is not getting the best QB play with Justin Fields struggling.
But it just seems like even with Fields’ struggles, it just seems the play-calling could use a little more imagination – do some things to create more, like you saw from Bryce Young today before he left the game with an injury.
It just seems like when Fields is in the game, they are trying to minimize the QB position. You saw that in London, and you saw that today.
Maybe some of that is coming from the head coach, but this offense is lacking a little juice right now.
Maybe you get passing game coordinator Scott Turner, who has been an offensive coordinator before in the league, more involved.
But this offense is stuck in the mud, and Glenn needs to do something . . .
Teams don’t tell you actual attendance anymore.
They just tell you paid attendance, and that number today was 71,047.
I heard that stadium officials were expecting 65,000 in the stadium. The building holds 82,500.
So some Jets fans are staying away.
But, you know what, that really doesn’t matter as much as it used to.
Fans used to have a bully pulpit with the team by not showing up, sometimes forcing teams to make changes due to lost seat and concession revenue.
But with the TV contract exploding in recent years, into multi-billion dollar deals, stadium revenue isn’t as important.
Of course it is important, but not nearly as important as it used to be.
The TV money pays most of the bills.
October 19, 2025
Premium will return by 9:30 pm (or sooner) on Monday.
