It feels like ancient history, but it was actually just 365 days ago.

The Philadelphia Eagles defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX, concluding the 2024 NFL season. It meant that New England Patriots fans could finally turn the page on a season from their worst nightmares.

New England was coming off a 4-13 season. The Patriots had won eight games over the last two seasons. When the confetti dropped in New Orleans, the Patriots opened with 100-to-1 odds to win Super Bowl LX… even slimmer odds than the New York Jets (80-to-1).

Today, the Patriots are the reigning AFC champions (although they failed to seal the deal in the big game). Meanwhile, the Jets’ predicament looks eerily similar to the one faced by the now-AFC champions just one year ago.

New York is coming off a 3-14 season. The Jets have won eight games over the past two seasons. When the confetti dropped in Santa Clara last night, the Jets opened with 250-to-1 odds to win Super Bowl LXI (per FanDuel).

Frankly, the Jets’ situation is even worse than the one New England was in last year; after all, the Jets’ championship odds are more than twice as long. Nevertheless, if we look solely at the standings, the situation is hardly different. The Pats were coming off an 8-26 stretch over the previous two seasons, and so are the Jets.

New England parlayed that into an AFC championship. Could the Jets do the same?

Let’s run through the top two reasons the Patriots were able to go from 8-26 to the Super Bowl, and evaluate the Jets’ outlook in each of those categories.

Quarterback

The main reason why New England’s odds were more than twice as strong as the Jets’ current odds at this point in 2025 is that they had a young franchise quarterback. When you have an up-and-coming signal-caller, a meteoric rise is always within the realm of possibility for the team.

Whether it was Jalen Hurts (2022), Joe Burrow (2021), Josh Allen (2020), Lamar Jackson (2019), or Patrick Mahomes (2018), the leap of a young quarterback is often what vaults a team from outside of the championship conversation to squarely within it. So, if a team has one of these guys on their roster, it significantly increases their chances of taking a substantial jump as a team.

The Patriots had one last year. The Jets do not.

Few could have foreseen Drake Maye enjoying the type of leap that he did, save for his family and the most blindly loyal Bostonians. After going 3-9 with a sub-90.0 passer rating in his rookie year, Maye led the NFL in passer rating (113.5) while finishing one first-place vote shy of winning MVP… at 23 years old.

New England won the AFC title for many reasons, but Maye’s elite production is number one.

There is little to no chance that the Jets will enjoy this type of quarterback play in 2026.

If the Jets draft a potential franchise quarterback, he will not be at Maye’s level in year one; it’s never been done before. The Jets would be lucky if that quarterback were even league-average, given how weak the 2026 quarterback class is perceived to be.

If the Jets find their starter outside of the draft, they will probably have to settle for a mediocre stopgap, like Jacoby Brissett, or another team’s damaged goods, like Kyler Murray.

New York will have to try and pull off a Pats-like turnaround without nearly as prolific a quarterback. It is fair to say that this is borderline impossible, but let’s continue with the exercise to hammer the point home.

Head coach

One thing that the Patriots had going for them at this point in 2025 is a new head coach—a proven one, at that.

New England went one-and-done with Jerod Mayo, fanning out the stench of the late-Bill Belichick era. It allowed them to turn the page to Mike Vrabel, a coach who had already shown that he could turn an organization around and lead it deep into the playoffs.

The Jets… are in a somewhat different position, to put it nicely.

Aaron Glenn is returning as head coach after a 3-14 season in which his team was outscored by 203 points. He has already admitted that he struck out on essentially every critical coaching hire that he made in his rookie year. It not only reduces confidence that Glenn has any sort of plan worth believing in, but it has also left the Jets scrounging for leftovers across the coaching staff.

Huge Frank Reich issue that shows how behind the times he was at last 2 stops

Pre-snap motion rate:

2022 (IND): 34.4% (3rd-lowest)
2023 (CAR): 28.4% (4th-lowest)

The 2025 NFL average was 55.9%. 13 of this year’s 16 best offenses (per DVOA) had a motion rate above NFL avg #Jets

— Michael Nania (@Michael_Nania) February 9, 2026

It is difficult for the Jets to have nearly as much confidence in Glenn as the Patriots had in Vrabel one year ago. Vrabel had already proven himself as a head coach. Glenn may be an 0-4 start away from the end of his head coaching career.

The ironic aspect of this comparison is that the Jets had a chance to put themselves in a similar position to the 2025 Patriots by going one-and-done with Glenn. It would have been a justifiable call, as Glenn’s lone year as a coach was even worse than Mayo’s. In fact, if we’re talking about point differential, Mayo’s 2024 Patriots team (-128) was a whopping 75 points better than Glenn’s 2025 Jets team (-203).

New York likely would not have attracted a coach as proven as Vrabel, but the Jets surely would have more hope moving forward if they had wiped the slate clean and hired a coach who had yet to show a floor as low as Glenn’s. New England would not be in their current position if they did not have the guts to admit that they had seen enough of Mayo to realize he was not the guy to save the franchise.

The Patriots’ turnaround coincided with a fresh perspective from the head coach spot. Of course, a 10-win improvement is far beyond any realistic person’s wildest expectations, but a stark turnaround is more plausible when the team’s entire operation is overhauled.

The Jets won’t have that going for them in 2026, making it difficult to envision them improving to nearly the same degree that the Patriots did.

Forget about it

With no answer at quarterback and a lame-duck head coach, the Jets’ chances of pulling off a Pats-like turnaround are near-zero.

We’ll put it above zero with respect to the sports world’s knack for producing unfathomable storylines. But it is safe to say that, as unexpected as the Pats’ run was, it would be at least three times as shocking if the Jets won the AFC in 2026. That might even be underselling it.

With the Super Bowl out of the question, it’s tough to say what the Jets’ realistic goal should be. On one hand, it is fair to say that an improvement of three to four wins, with Glenn looking like a competent NFL head coach, is within striking distance.

But if “competent” is the best Glenn can do through two years, would that truly represent a successful campaign? His debut season was historically disastrous. Is one competent year enough for Glenn to prove himself as a guy worth hitching the wagon to for a third season?

The fact of the matter is this: one-year turnarounds are ripe for the picking in today’s NFL. The days of a multi-year rebuild process being the “right way” to build a team are over. While it naturally plays out that way for some franchises (like Glenn’s former Detroit Lions), the idea that teams should strive for it is ignorant of what’s been happening around the league.

The Patriots, Bears, and Jaguars each won 11+ games this year after winning five or fewer in 2024. Last season, the Commanders made it to the NFC championship game after winning four games. The 2021 Bengals made it to the Super Bowl after winning four games.

The fact that we cannot sit here and confidently state that Glenn has any chance of leading this type of turnaround in 2026 is all the more proof that the Jets probably set their franchise back by choosing not to take the same one-and-done route that led the Patriots to the Super Bowl.

That’s all water under the bridge, though. Glenn will lead the Jets in 2026.

So, what is the Jets’ realistic goal if a Super Bowl trip is out of the question?

If we’re being pragmatic, it’s probably the aforementioned improvement of three to four wins, with Glenn improving to the ranks of a somewhat respectable NFL coach.

But when looking toward the Jets’ long-term future through a candid lens—understanding the dangers of entering purgatory with a mediocre coach—then the Jets should expect Glenn to take a massive leap as a coach and lead them to the playoffs (even if the team isn’t Super Bowl-caliber).

Otherwise, Glenn’s two-year body of work wouldn’t be enough for the Jets to believe that he isn’t going to lead them into purgatory, even if he meets the “realistic” bar of improving by three to four wins. All that would do is leave him with a sub-.300 record across two seasons in a league where teams go from last place to the championship round on a near-annual basis.

New York’s 2026 goals are a subjective matter. The bottom line is that the Jets are extremely unlikely to replicate what the Patriots did, and the sheer fact that it can be stated with so much confidence is an indictment of the team’s current leadership. It should feel possible (albeit extremely unlikely) for them to do the same thing.

But it doesn’t even feel within the realm of possibility.