After the Jets’ 31-24 loss in Detroit on Sunday, the team’s coach Aaron Glenn said about his club: “This team is different. This is not the team of last year.”
While “you are what your record says it is,” as a great coach once said, and the Jets have now lost two games in a row, dropping to 1-2, this team is certainly better than the one we saw at the end of last year, a group that got blown out in their last five games.
The last two weeks, they lost close games, not blowouts, but how do they take that next step and win these close games?
“That gap right there, how do we close that gap? Glenn said at Ford Field after the Jets’ loss to the Lions. “And there are some things that we know we have to improve on. I challenged myself; I challenged the staff. I even challenged the players on, man, let’s identify a couple of things that we need to improve on and let’s make sure that we hone in on those things to make sure we get that done.”
While there are perhaps plenty of things they need to “hone in on” to improve, two things at the top of the list involve the trenches.
Like many football people like to say, “The game is won in the trenches.”
The Jets need to shore up their interior run defense, which has not been great the last couple of weeks, with too many big chunk runs right up the gut. Guys up front must stack and shed better.
And also, they need to improve on switch-off blocks on the offensive line against stunts and blitzes, an issue over the last two weeks.
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