Tom Rock: Get excited, Jets fans; your team could start 2-0 . . . and dare we say it, 3-0!
Jets fans took over Tennessee in Week 1 on Sept. 13, 2026; what will they do for an encore in today's home opener at MetLife Stadium? Credit: Getty Images/Chris Carter
The weather forecast for MetLife Stadium on Sunday has been gloomy all week. It’s the Jets’ home opener, so naturally, after several straight days with near-perfect conditions, there is the expectation of rain to dampen things.
That’s just how things tend to go for the Jets. The team that was hoping for a White Out from its fans in this game against the Packers could get a Wash Out instead.
But there is another forecast that wasn’t on anyone’s Doppler radar until very recently, a different kind of front moving across the region. This one has nothing to do with the climate or conditions.
It’s the wave of optimism that suddenly has gripped those long-suffering, often-soggy fans of the Jets. It’s the chance to build on the speck of momentum that the team seized with its Week 1 win over the Titans.
The Jets said they plan to distribute ponchos to the fans who attend Sunday’s game to keep them physically dry. What might be more appreciated by the tens of thousands who will show up with raging expectations is, of course, a victory. That would be an umbrella for the soul.
Can these Jets deliver on that? They are facing a Packers team that even with its obvious issues, winless record and lack of game-changing players with Josh Jacobs and Micah Parsons sidelined for, um, various reasons, is a much more daunting opponent than last week’s turned out to be.
These Jets have a little daunt to themselves all of a sudden, though. It’s not hard to foresee a path for them to win. Heck, that rain might even help them if it slows down Packers quarterback Jordan Love and means the teams have to rely on their running games — an area in which the Jets, with their offensive line, tight ends, Breece Hall and Braelon Allen, should have an advantage.
Let’s get nuts and take things a step further. The Jets somehow start 2-0 before playing the Lions in Week 3. The Lions, who have allowed 71 points in their two games, barely beating the Saints in overtime and getting throttled by the Bills on Thursday night. The Lions, whose offense no one knows better than their former defensive coordinator, Aaron Glenn, in terms of shutting it down.
Dare we dream it? Could these Jets start 3-0?
Let’s just focus on Sunday for now, because it is a rather rare instance in which Jets fans will enter the gates of MetLife Stadium in a jolly mood.
Since the building opened in 2010, there have been only 25 other home games (plus one other that was a Giants home game) in which the Jets boasted a winning record at kickoff. Eleven of them occurred in the first two years in the building; in the last 10 seasons, it has happened only seven other times. The last one came nearly two full years ago, on Sept. 29, 2024, when the 2-1 Jets and a still-recovering Aaron Rodgers lost to the Broncos, 10-9.
This isn’t a team that has let its very few good times roll, either. Their record in those seven games that began with promise in the past decade is 2-5. In other words, only twice in the last 10 years have Jets fans walked into their own stadium feeling good and walked out feeling even better. Twice.
A third would definitely be a charm.
It also would give the Jets a 2-0 record to start a season for the first time since 2015 and the 12th time in their entire history.
Not that such beginnings are solid harbingers of anything. Yes, their only Super Bowl season began that way, but so did eight others that ended without even making the postseason. The last time they started 2-0 and made the playoffs was 2009, when they were still playing in the old Giants Stadium.
Speaking of Giants Stadium . . . Last week’s opener for Big Blue in the same building where the Jets will play on Sunday was a triumph for them and their fans. It started out at a frenzied pitch and kept building. It was an electric atmosphere with a celebratory tone. And it is exactly what the Jets want for their home opener this week. Rain or shine.
“I think any team in this league wants to make sure their home field becomes an advantage when it comes to crowd noise and when it comes to momentum,” Glenn said. “We want to make this a place where it’s hard to play. There’s nothing like playing in New York City, just in general, and once you start to create an atmosphere where you make your fans proud and they start showing up and they start understanding exactly what we’re trying to accomplish in totality, it’s nothing but a good thing.”
The closest the Jets have gotten to that in recent memory was the 2023 opener. That euphoria lasted four offensive plays.
This Sunday could come close to that. It won’t have the lasers and flashing wristbands that night games allow to amp up the oomph. It won’t have the buzz of a national television audience watching. It might not even have much sunshine to bask in.
And that White Out theme they are pushing? While the helmets and uniforms definitely look sharp, guilting fans into dressing in unison always feels as if it lands somewhere between hokey and cringey. It’s not a very New York vibe.
What this game will have, though, is a potentially decent Jets team, the possibility of victory and a fan base starving for anything to celebrate.
The fraction of them who showed up in Nashville last week gave the team a nice boost. Now a whole stadium full of them will want to do their share.
“I’m expecting the crowd to be exactly who New York Jets fans are,” Glenn said.
Grumpy, pessimistic and disheartened? And rain-soaked to boot?
No. Loud. Passionate. Proud. Chant-astic.
Maybe they’ll even end the day still feeling those ways too.
We had a pretty good idea what the weather would be like, but really, who could have had that on the back end of their seven-day forecast?
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
