Jets star sums up biggest problem with broken offense

The Jets keep talking about how complex their problems on offense are. How it takes everyone being on the same page and how easily things can go awry if they're not.

"I've been saying that same thing almost every single week," Aaron Rodgers said a week ago. "'What's the issue?' Well, 10 guys are on the same page and one guy isn't."

Here's the problem: you look around at other teams with less talent, and fewer healthy stars, and you see them scoring with regularity. You see the Patriots lose starting quarterback Drake Maye and score enough to beat the Jets anyway. You see Mike Williams leave the Jets, where he couldn't get involved in the nine games before he was traded, and need only one catch in Pittsburgh to make a bigger impact than he did in two full months here.

The examples go on and on and on.

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And Jets running back Breece Hall summed up the issue perfectly on Thursday when asked by reporters if it's hard to figure out how all these weapons, including Hall, Garrett Wilson, and Davante Adams, could score only six points last week in a must-win game against the Cardinals.

"Yeah, because it shouldn't be this hard," Hall said. "It sucks. But I think we'll be fine. We'll figure it out."

The Jets are running out of time to figure it out at four games under .500 with just seven games left in the season. The Jets haven't been able to do anything consistently on offense at any point this season. Switching from offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett calling the plays to quarterback coach Todd Downing has made things only slightly better in recent weeks.

And it's not even close to good enough, as they failed to score a single touchdown against a Cardinals defense that was ranked in the bottom 10 of the league heading into last week's game.

Rodgers' self confidence hasn't helped the Jets overcome the issues that have been dogging them for years. And Downing knows that the banked struggles of this offense, and the natural negativity that comes with the wildly disappointing results, provide a current the Jets must swim through to get to where they want to go.

"I am obnoxiously enthusiastic and positive throughout the week," Downing said. "I really believe that you can talk yourself into some success and we certainly have the talent, we just need to get out there and have the mindset that things will eventually go our way and not have that feeling of here we go again or man, we're snake bitten or cursed or something like that. We just need to go out there with the joy of a kid playing this game and believe that it's going to turn around."

Right now, the Jets are talking themselves into how hard it is to run an functional NFL offense. It shouldn't be this hard. It hasn't been, year over year, for anyone else. And until the Jets start thinking about it that way, they're likely going to continue to have problems scoring consistently.