Colts 28 Jets 27: Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad

The 2024 New York Jets are a bad football team in every way imaginable.

What else can we say at this point? The Jets are 3-8 after a 28-27 loss to the Indianapolis Colts.

You don't get to this point without being terrible in ways that are both obvious and subtle.

The Jets' defense was much hyped entering the season. It had big names up and down the unit. For the second time in four weeks, the unit allowed a quarterback who had been benched by his team lead not one but two fourth quarter scoring drives to win a game. That is obvious.

It's more subtle how the offense failed the team. It's easy to point to the scoreboard and say the unit had its best day of the season, netting 27 points. In reality, this was not an impressive showing. The Jets registered only 10 first downs. They started two scoring drives on the Indianapolis side of the field, one of which required a 58 yard field goal to get points. A third scoring drive started at the Jets' 41. The points were as much the result of defensive and special teams wins as they were about the offense actually producing.

This is not a team that can do much right. We saw as much in this game. There were physical errors, such as defensive breakdowns in key spots. We saw mental errors, such as wasting two timeouts on a key fourth quarter drive, which proved costly.

No offense to the Indianapolis Colts, but they aren't much of a team this year. Still, it came as little surprise the Jets ended up on the short end of the result in Week 11.

As always, when the team loses the coaching staff will receive plenty of criticism. This isn't unfair. The Jets bringing back Robert Saleh for the 2024 season was an ill-advised move. Replacing him in season with Jeff Ulbrich was even more ill-advised. Ulbrich might be a quality assistant, but he inherited a monumental task that pretty much no first time head coach could be expected to navigate successfully. Even understanding that, Ulbrich has been a disappointment.

The players aren't very good either. Some of them like Sauce Gardner should be better. The third year cornerback isn't just having a bad season. He looks like a completely different player than he was in his first two professional campaigns.

The poor play of others, like Aaron Rodgers, are easier to understand. The Jets spent 18 months hyping Rodgers as the franchise savior. However, the Hall of Fame version of Rodgers is a distant memory. What the Jets have is a shell of the superstar who lit up the NFC North for a decade and a half in Green Bay. This current version of Rodgers can barely move, displays increasingly diminished arm strength, and is hesitant to even attempt downfield passes.

Some explanations for this loss are obvious, such as the late defensive meltdown. Others require a better memory, such as Rodgers' 3 passing yards in the first 25 minutes of the game. A better performance early would have banked the Jets more points and could have swung the game.

The bottom line is at 3-8, there are no simple explanations for this team's failures. Nor is there a quick fix. Owner Woody Johnson's idea that firing Saleh, trading for Davante Adams, or signing Haason Reddick would remedy all that is wrong with the team looks foolish. Perhaps the only thing more foolish was thinking the addition of Rodgers in 2023 or his return in 2024 would magically turn the Jets into an elite team.

There isn't anything good about this football team right now. The coaches are bad. The players are bad. The offense is bad. The defense is bad. The tangible performance is bad. The intangibles are bad.

It's all bad.