A nightmarish decade-and-a-half continues for the New York Jets. The organization has missed the playoffs 15 years in a row and hasn’t finished above .500 in the last decade.
Along the way, the Jets have seen their arch-rival, the New England Patriots, run through the NFL with three Super Bowl wins. When Tom Brady and Bill Belichick left the organization, though, there was hope that New England’s run of dominance had come to an end.
Instead, the Patriots are right back on top, while the Jets remain in the cellar.
Jets’ nightmare scenario
With the Patriots’ 10-7 win over the Denver Broncos in Colorado on Sunday, they will participate in the Super Bowl for the first time since 2018. It had been just seven seasons since New England was last in the big game.
During that time, the Patriots still made two playoff appearances (2019 and 2021), although they did suffer through four losing seasons. From 2022-24, they were among the worst teams in the league. Things changed drastically for two reasons.
The quarterback and the coaching.
The draft selection of an MVP candidate in Drake Maye, and the hiring of both head coach Mike Vrabel and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, have completely shifted the organization.
It’s the kind of cultural transition Jets fans have been begging to see.
Despite having years to pull it off, perhaps burying their rivals in the same basement they have been stuck in, the Jets have to watch their rival go all the way to another Super Bowl with the exact formula they have tried and failed to execute countless times.
As good as the Patriots look, they benefited from some good fortune along the way. They received one of the easiest schedules in NFL history after finishing last in the AFC East in 2024. Part of that easy schedule included two cakewalk victories over a historically bad Jets team.
New England also walked into a postseason in which there was no Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, or Lamar Jackson. Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills was the last elite quarterback standing, and he was eliminated by the Broncos the week prior.
The Patriots then enjoyed the benefit of facing a Broncos team without its starting quarterback, Bo Nix, in the AFC championship game. Because of that, the Patriots gutted out a victory in the snow against Jarrett Stidham, a career backup who hasn’t started a game in two years.
The Patriots still get credit for their Super Bowl run, of course. But that kind of luck is rare in any year. It’s a sign of a higher power working to help the people in New England more than those struggling in New York.
The Jets have only themselves to blame, though. They have failed to build around young quarterbacks and have made major mistakes with their coaching hires.
Sometimes, though, all a team needs is luck. And New York has been short on luck for decades.
Instead, they have to watch their arch-rival go for another Super Bowl as they are mired in yet another rebuild.