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As one of my favorite musical groups, BNL, once sang, “It’s been one week.”
So, what can we discern about the 2025 New York Jets after one week of training camp?
Not too much, since we haven’t seen any real football games, but there are a few things.
When people ask me what I think of Aaron Glenn so far, my answer is this:
“I have no idea how his game management or X’s and O’s will be, but it’s pretty clear he’s a true leader of men.”
Look, none of us know how successful he will be as Jets coach, but I can assure you that if it doesn’t work out, it won’t be because of his leadership skills.
If he doesn’t succeed, it could be the reason many coaches don’t succeed – not having a quarterback.
That can bring down the best of them, including perhaps the GOAT, Bill Belichick, in New England. He couldn’t replace Tom Brady, had three rough seasons, and got fired.
I’m not saying Aaron Glenn doesn’t have a QB, and I’m not predicting he will fail. We have no idea right now, just making the obvious point, if you don’t have a QB in this league, it’s hard to be successful.
After a week in camp, it’s hard to tell if Glenn has an answer at QB for 2025.
As we mentioned over the last few days, the Jets’ passing offense was moribund in the first week of camp.
Garrett Wilson has not been prolific, due to no fault of his own.
As Santonio Holmes once famously said during a stretch with the Jets where he wasn’t putting up big numbers – “I can’t throw the ball to myself.”
So far, and it’s early, we have kind of seen the Justin Fields we saw the first four years of his career – three in Chicago and one in Pittsburgh – one read and run.
But honestly, with the QB scrambles, it’s hard to really evaluate their effectiveness in a training camp setting, because you can’t touch the quarterbacks, there is no tackling, so the scrambles are essentially against air.
Clearly, the Jets are going to run a lot of RPOs and designed QB scrambles in real games, and it’s hard to evaluate that stuff right now.
But one thing we learned from Tuesday’s practices – when the Jets can’t run, it’s going to be hard for this offense to be successful.
The Jets’ run defense was excellent on Tuesday, and that gummed up the works of their offense, which is going to feature a lot of read-options, bootlegs, and play-action passes, so if you can’t run, it throws a monkey wrench into your offensive operation.
As for the Jets’ defense so far, they need Jermaine Johnson to return and man that starting spot opposite Will McDonald. I will leave it at that.
Speaking of McDonald, he made life very difficult for rookie right tackle Armand Membou over the first week of camp. Membou should be good in time, but it was kind of rough sailing in his matchups with McDonald, which should help his maturation process in the long run.
The Jets’ linebackers still need to make more plays on the ball against the pass, an issue that has carried over from last year to the first week in camp.
Rookie safety Malachi Moore looks like a guy who is going to help Glenn’s secondary right out of the gate.
But it’s hard to analyze the secondary overall based on the first week of camp, because the passing offense has been so quiet, and it’s not just because of good coverage, but due to uneven QB play.
However, it’s reckless to make too much of what you see in the first week of camp. It’s like the first week of dress rehearsal. Too early to truly review the play.
July 30, 2025
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