When the Jets went on a four-game winning streak in October, they established their formula: Play good defense, run the ball and let the quarterback just manage the game and not turn the ball over.
Two months later, they are now in a four-game losing streak. Though it is easy to point the finger at quarterback Zach Wilson, who has not played well in the past two losses he started, another troubling aspect of this losing streak is the lack of a running game.
In their loss Thursday to the Jaguars, the Jets had just 66 yards rushing. Take away the 55 yards gained on quarterback runs by Wilson and Chris Streveler, and the running backs had just 11 yards.
The Jets are averaging 64 yards rushing per game over their past three and have gained 100 yards rushing just once during this losing streak. Not so coincidentally, they are averaging 13.5 points per game over those four games.
Right now, it doesn’t matter if Wilson, Streveler, Mike White, Joe Flacco or Joe Namath is at quarterback. If the Jets can’t run the ball, they are not going to win.
“There was a stretch, and I showed the guys that the other day, there was a stretch where we ran the ball pretty well — Green Bay, Denver, obviously the Buffalo game, even Minnesota kind of got it going a little bit late,” offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur said. “But these last three weeks has not been acceptable on all levels, starting with us as coaches putting these guys in the position to get the run game going. The execution is off, the fundamentals are off, and that starts with me and we got to get that fixed now, like yesterday.”
It is admirable that LaFleur and coach Robert Saleh are pointing the finger at themselves and taking accountability, but there is also a major personnel issue at play here, too.
The offensive line has sustained many injuries this season, and it feels like that has caught up to the Jets. They desperately miss Alijah Vera-Tucker, who started at three different positions along the line before suffering a season-ending injury in Denver in October. Tackles Duane Brown (shoulder) and George Fant (knee) are clearly not 100 percent with the injuries they have been dealing with all season. Defenders are beating them inside consistently, and they are not getting any push in the run game.
“It’s not good enough right now,” Saleh said. “At all.”
When you look at the four-game winning streak in October, the Jets averaged 141.8 rushing yards a game. They put up 179 yards against the Packers, 155 against the Broncos and 135 against the Dolphins.
The biggest blow to the running game came when rookie back Breece Hall tore his ACL on Oct. 23 at Denver. Hall had the ability to turn short gains into long touchdowns, an element that has been missing from this offense since. In those wins over the Dolphins, Packers and Broncos, Hall made big plays.
“That is what it is,” LaFleur said of Hall. “That was two months ago, we ran the ball well against Chicago, ran the ball pretty well against Minnesota. Breece is a great player, would love to have him, and he’ll be great moving forward, … but that’s not the issue right now.”
The big question this week heading into the Week 17 game with the Seahawks is who the starting quarterback will be. But it might not matter if the Jets can’t somehow find a way to get the running game going again.
“I think the O-line as a whole doesn’t feel great,” center Connor McGovern said after the game Thursday. “Everybody isn’t happy with the outcome of that game. We all know that it’s on us to perform better and it’s on us to protect whoever’s back there.”