MIAMI — Aaron Glenn insists these aren’t the same ol’ Jets.
The results would suggest otherwise.
There remains no column in the standings for “one score game, but lost” or “played well enough to win, but didn’t.”
Wins. Losses. That’s it.
On their lone Monday Night Football appearance of the season, it was indeed a penalty-riddled, turnover-filled loss to the almost equally hapless Miami Dolphins by a 27-21 score in a game that mostly never felt quite that close in front of an announced crowd of 65,848 fans at Hard Rock Stadium.
Unable to overcome an ominous start, they’re now one of just two winless teams left in the National Football League — only the Tennessee Titans, fresh off of having the number one selection in the Draft are mathematically worse — and from the outside looking in, there’s little reason for hope that the year can turn around.
“It’s frustrating, I’ll keep it that simple,” said Jets quarterback Justin Fields, returning after missing a week after being unable to clear concussion protocol, of his team’s 0-4 start.
“It’s frustrating for sure. But at the end of the day, if we look at it from a far perspective, we have three games that we lost by one score. That’s kind of how this league works, close games at the end, and I think tonight we shot ourselves in the foot a lot with turning the ball over and penalties. It’s very frustrating. But, I’m not losing faith. Nobody in the locker room is losing faith. All we’re going to do is keep our head down and work.”
Three fumbles and 13 accepted penalties worth a total of 101 yards were hard to overcome against a previously winless Dolphins team that lost arguably their best wide receiver, Tyreek Hill, to a gruesome leg injury early in the second half.
“Very disappointing,” said Glenn, the team’s first-year head coach, of another unfavorable outcome. “There’s no way you can win any game with 13 penalties and three turnovers. It just can’t happen. What we have to do is go back to work. That’s the only way we can fix it, really take a look at these penalties, take a look at these turnovers and make sure we understand that before you can win games, you have to learn how to not lose games. We have to do a better job in that case, and we will.”
New York Jets running back Breece Hall (20) is stopped as he runs the ball by Miami Dolphins’ Tyrel Dodson (25) and Bradley Chubb (2) in the second half of an NFL football game, Monday, Sept. 29, 2025, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Just not yet.
It seemed like somewhat of a deflated Jets locker room in the bowels of the older, but multiple times-repolished stadium in the heart of Miami Gardens, with only the noise of athletic tape being unwrapped and discarded by the time media was let in, the soundtrack of another critical missed opportunity in another season that seems to be slipping away before it even gets started.
Gang Green, as they seem to, had their chances on Monday, but their first turnover of the game felt particularly like a killer; Braelon Allen, who was also lost later in the game to what appeared to be a significant knee injury, fumbled on the goal line to leave a 12-play, 81-yard drive ultimately bearing no fruit.
A touchdown there would have given them a lead, something they ultimately never held all night long.
Fields, who finished the night having completed 20 of his 27 passes for 226 yards and one touchdown, as well as another 81 yards and a score on seven carries, said it wasn’t difficult at all to try to overcome it, but on the scoreboard at least, it never happened.
“I think we started inside the ten, so we had a long drive and we were having our way, and a mistake happened,” he said. “We’re all human. Mistakes happen. But we want to limit those as much as possible. First drive of the game, you just brush it off, there’s a lot of game left. You don’t get discouraged over that, it’s a fumble, it’s football. At the end of the day, we did have a (long) drive to start the game off, so we started well, we just didn’t finish off that drive.”
New York Jets wide receiver Garrett Wilson, right, catches a touchdown pass as Miami Dolphins cornerback Rasul Douglas (26) defends in the second half of an NFL football game, Monday, Sept. 29, 2025, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)