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Looking back at the Jets loss to Dallas, man do the Jets have problems on defense.
And here is the thing – if you are going to give yourself the best shot at winning games with Justin Fields at QB, you can’t force him to light up the scoreboard every week and win shootouts.
You need to keep the score down and try to win games 23-20.
Fields and a bad defense have almost no shot at succeeding.
And this Jets defense is really bad.
The team’s brass made a number of dubious defensive personnel decisions entering this season.
And not just related to starters, but to key backups.
To have fifth-round rookies Kiko Mauigoa and Tyler Baron playing as much as they are is a big mistake.
Both guys have potential, but are major projects.
I hate to criticize them because they didn’t put themselves on the field, but they are both struggling mightily.
The echo chamber is obsessed with hating on Michael Clemons and Brandon Stephens, but they’ve got to realize, that the personnel issues on the Jets defense, run deep.
In fact, Stephens is actually not playing that poorly, as much as the echo chambers would find that hard to believe.
As for Clemons, I’m cutting him a little slack, because he’s such a bad fit for 4-3 end, that how can I, with a clear conscience, rip him? If he’s going to have any chance to be successful on the NFL level, he needs to play 3-4 end. Clemons is a victim of the scouting process.
But having Mauigoa starting now for the injured Quincy Williams is perhaps not ideal. He’s a great kid, who gives you everything he’s got, but he’s not ready.
I know that they also lost Marcelino McCrary-Ball, but you need to have another option, not a fifth-round project starting the last three games. Veteran inside linebackers are always available and cheap, like Ben Niemann kind of guys. Not sure why they got rid of him. Maybe they think Mauigoa is better.
Mauigoa looks a little over his skis right, especially in coverage, like on a one-yard TD pass to Dallas TE Jake Ferguson on Sunday, with 14 seconds left in the half.
“That is where if you are the Jets, you have to have some awareness,” Fox’s Greg Olson said after the TD. “The likelihood of them handing that ball off with 19 seconds left is probably pretty low – you have to play (the pass).”
Mauigoa bit on a run fake and didn’t cover Ferguson.
Early in the second quarter, Ferguson had a 26-yard TD catch. On this play, there was a fake handoff to Javonte Williams, both Mauigoa and Jamien Sherwood bit hard on the fake, and the tight end snuck out for an easy TD.
The pass coverage at linebacker is not good. It wasn’t good last year, or this year.
The Jets should have kept linebacker Zaire Barnes as a backup, and put Mauigoa on the practice squad, but perhaps due to confirmation bias, they didn’t. They didn’t pick Barnes, but did pick Mauigoa, and they cut the Western Michigan linebacker, who was claimed by the Giants.
As for Baron, Glenn, who claims to be running a meritocracy, continues to roll with him heavily in his defensive end rotation, even though the raw player out of Miami is not ready to play, and is hurting the defense.
It’s not the kid’s fault, but he’s not ready. He had two huge missed tackles in the first half, first on a third-and-one run for two by Williams in the second quarter (he had a shot at him in the backfield) and then another missed tackle on a 66-yard run by Williams, also in the second quarter.
Even though Jermaine Johnson got hurt, Baron is playing way too much, too soon. There should have been another veteran end as the first man in if there was an injury.
Both Mauigoa and Baron should be practice-squad players right now.
Some might argue – you can’t put them on the practice squad, they could get stolen.
I wouldn’t worry about that. If they are stolen, so be it, they are replaceable players – neither is a transcendent talent.
People are so obsessed with Clemons and Stephens (who hasn’t been that bad, aside from the opener, when he was forced to Calvin Austin, who he matches up terribly with – that is on the coaches), they can’t see the forest for the trees.
Like I said the other day, this defense probably needs 6-7 new starters next year, and better depth.
Some big mistakes were made on that side of the ball in terms of roster and chart construction, and you see that bad decisions are really hurting the Jets on game day.
October 8, 2025
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