{"id":194347,"date":"2025-07-09T20:10:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T20:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/194347\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T20:10:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T20:10:11","slug":"jets-may-catch-a-lucky-break-in-vital-week-3-matchup-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/194347\/","title":{"rendered":"Jets may catch a lucky break in vital Week 3 matchup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not many teams will face a tougher September schedule for the 2025 NFL season than the New York Jets, who open up with three straight games against playoff teams from last year<\/a>. First there\u2019s the highly anticipated matchup with the Pittsburgh Steelers who will be led by Aaron Rodgers, and you can bet he\u2019ll be out for blood in this revenge game. Then the five-time reigning division champs, the Buffalo Bills, followed by the feisty Tampa Bay Buccaneers.<\/p>\n

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There\u2019s a very good chance that the Jets start this season 0-3, which would ring a death knell for their playoff hopes. Since the year 2000, only one team has made the playoffs after starting the season 0-3<\/a>, and that was the 2018 Houston Texans.<\/p>\n

Do the Jets need to make the playoffs in order to have a successful year? No, not necessarily. Especially not with a first time head coach in Aaron Glenn and while trying to rehabilitate the career of quarterback and former first-round pick Justin Fields<\/a>. But no one wants to start a long NFL season with their playoffs hopes dashed before the calendar turns even once.<\/p>\n

However, of these three games, the Jets\u2019 Week 3 matchup against the Bucs feels like the most winnable, and they may have just caught a huge break. NFL insider Ari Meirov reported on Wednesday morning that Tampa Bay\u2019s elite left tackle, Tristan Wirfs, recently underwent surgery on his right knee and may be unavailable for the early part of the season.<\/p>\n

This offers a massive stroke of luck for Aaron Glenn and his defense. Wirfs has been one of the game\u2019s most dominant offensive lineman since the day he first stepped on an NFL field. Despite having played just five seasons, he is already a four-time Pro Bowler and three-time All-Pro. At the rate he\u2019s going, Wirfs\u2019 spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame is already assured.<\/p>\n

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If he\u2019s still unavailable in Week 3 when the Jets come to town, quarterback Baker Mayfield could be in for a horrific day at the office. New York\u2019s Quinnen Williams is already a game-wrecker up the middle<\/a>, and if Mayfield also has to worry about Will McDonald IV or Jermaine Johnson crashing in on his left, the Bucs are going to have a tough time moving the ball.<\/p>\n

Of course, Wirfs is still just one player in what is the ultimate team sport. While facing the Bucs without him would help the Jets\u2019 chances of winning, the whole team needs to pull together, especially Fields. It won\u2019t be fair to the defense to expect them to hold every team to less than 21 points<\/a>, even if they are missing arguably their best player.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Not many teams will face a tougher September schedule for the 2025 NFL season than the New York…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2051],"tags":[1585,1586,16938,1842,53,7,253,8142,226,493,1917,255,2321,2097,6,57,6736,704,250,796,13221,26524],"class_list":{"0":"post-194347","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-jets","8":"tag-aaron-glenn","9":"tag-aaron-rodgers","10":"tag-ari-meirov","11":"tag-baker-mayfield","12":"tag-buffalo-bills","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-houston-texans","15":"tag-jermaine-johnson","16":"tag-jets","17":"tag-justin-fields","18":"tag-new-york","19":"tag-new-york-jets","20":"tag-newyork","21":"tag-newyorkjets","22":"tag-nfl","23":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","24":"tag-quinnen-williams","25":"tag-tampa-bay","26":"tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","27":"tag-the-jets","28":"tag-tristan-wirfs","29":"tag-will-mcdonald-iv"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114825096667857756","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}