How the Jets' offense compares to the rest of the NFL this season
A New York Jets fans reacts to the team's performance during the second half of a 24-0 shutout against the Miami Dolphins on Oct. 18, 2020, in Miami Gardens, Fla. Credit: AP/Lynne Sladky
When the most positive thing people can say about the Jets this season is that at least there aren't any fans allowed into MetLife Stadium to watch, boo and throw things, that's less than ideal.
Jets fans are no strangers to bad seasons, but the drum beats louder and louder each week for head coach Adam Gase to become former head coach. Sports talkers and writers spend their Sundays watching the Jets on the field and the other 165 hours of the week crafting new ways to chronicle the offensive ineptitude. Thesaurases are burning their timeouts early.
On this past Sunday evening, the scoreboard in Miami showed zero time left and zero points scored for the Jets. By Monday, the Jets' point differential of -110 became a popular topic as projections indicated that at this rate, the Jets would have the worst point differential in NFL history at -293.
So just how underwhelming is the Jets' offense this season? Before you start searching for game tape on Clemson's Trevor Lawrence, take a look at some of the numbers through Week 6.
Total offense
Good news: The Jets are not last in the NFL in this category. Bad news: Only 1.4 yards separates the Jets from the two worst in this category, the Giants and Washington. So it's not a total offense to fans to view the total offense category.
Passing yards
The Jets entered the season with questions at wideout. And losing Sam Darnold for the past two games, with Joe Flacco as his replacement, didn't help matters much. The Jets rank 11th in pass attempts (217) and last in completion percentage (56.7). That's not the sort of split that brings about success in the pass-friendly NFL.
20+ yard passing plays
The new phrase among football talkers is "chunk plays," and passing plays of 20 or more yards certainly qualify. Here, the Jets aren't doing too well, falling nearly 33% below league average.
Yards per catch
Given the information above, you probably can guess how this next graph will look. Of the three players with 13.0 yards per catch or better, one has two catches and one was released from the team last week. And then there's Jamison Crowder with 29 catches and a 13.2 average. (Braxton Berrios is next at 12.8 ypc.)
Rushing yards
Running the ball figured to be the strength of the Jets' offense this season, with Le'Veon Bell vowing to return to form and the addition of Frank Gore, the third leading rusher in NFL history. Rankings-wise, that has held true. But at 0-6 and with Bell no longer on the team, "strength" is a relative term.
Points scored
The amount of points scored by a team is one of the two most important statistics in football (the other is points allowed), and the Jets scored zero of them in Week 6 against Miami. It was the first shutout of the 2020 NFL season. The Jets rank last in the NFL in points scored, trailing Denver by 25 points. Two key notes about that last sentence: 1) The Jets have scored more than 25 points in a game once so far this season; and 2) Denver has played one less game than the Jets.
Points per game
Even the 10 NFL teams that have played only five games so far this season instead of six like everyone else have all scored more points than the Jets.
Passer rating
No one confuses the Darnold-Flacco combination with Seattle's Russell Wilson, who is playing at an MVP level and leads the NFL in quarterback rating. But it's a category where you want your number to be closer to a human's normal body temperature than room temperature.
Total plays
If you're thinking that part of the problem with the Jets accumulating yards and points (and perhaps some wins) involves not having the ball enough to make plays, you'd be wrong. The Jets have run 382 plays so far, which ranks 14th and is above the league average.
Turnovers
The Jets are pretty good here. Top-10 good. And their +3 takeaway differential also is in the top 10. Yet, they remain the only winless team in the NFL.
Mark La Monica is a deputy sports editor at Newsday. He also covers mixed martial arts.
