New York Jets schedule<\/a> comfortably falls under that idea. Thus, it\u2019s appropriate to identify the silent strategy complication occurring in such a noisy world. <\/p>\nFilm process<\/p>\n
The two divisions on the Jets\u2019 slate this season are the AFC West and NFC North. Suffice it to say that isn\u2019t exactly the most ideal situation. <\/p>\n
But hey, that\u2019s the way things go for the AFC East in 2026. Each of the four teams in the division takes on those eight opponents at some point this coming season.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the rub: How it\u2019s ordered is the under-the-radar sticking point. <\/p>\n
Film watching isn\u2019t just a pastime for football players and coaches; it\u2019s a necessity in the modern world. Never has the NFL been as driven by scheme and strategy, which means preparing a game plan is born from the tape. <\/p>\n
A lot of it is a guessing game. <\/p>\n
For instance, Jets head coach Aaron Glenn will prepare his Jets to take on Robert Saleh\u2019s Tennessee Titans in Week 1. How he does that is accumulated by a combination of who he thinks his own team is, what the opposing team\u2019s tendencies are, and what he believes the opposition will do. <\/p>\n
The tape he and Frank Reich will watch in preparation is endless. Saleh\u2019s San Francisco 49ers defense will be on the docket. Likewise, so will Saleh\u2019s Jets\u2019 defenses, as well as the Titans\u2019 defense from 2025, to get an idea about certain players. <\/p>\n
The same can be said on the other side of the ball. Glenn will prepare his defense by reviewing Brian Daboll\u2019s previous offenses and the Titans\u2019 2025 tape. <\/p>\n
Week 1 is the most unique of the season, each season, because the guessing game ramps up to its peak. <\/p>\n
Film familiarity<\/p>\n
The Jets\u2019 schedule disadvantage begins in Week 3. <\/p>\n
As the season progresses, each team becomes more familiar with the next. This is exponentially true for teams within the same division. <\/p>\n
Every organization\u2019s initial goal in this league is to win the division. Period. That\u2019s the first order of business: To out-gun and defeat the three most familiar division foes, thus earning an automatic place in the tournament. <\/p>\n
After the Jets play in Tennessee, they face three straight NFC North squads. Week 2 against the Green Bay Packers \u2014 the Jets\u2019 home-opener \u2014 has no inherent disadvantage. <\/p>\n
After that, it begins\u2026 <\/p>\n
The Detroit Lions-Week 3 matchup puts the Jets behind the eight-ball a bit because the Lions are extremely familiar with their divisional rival, the Packers. Since the Lions know the Packers intimately well, Dan Campbell and company will have a better idea of who the Jets are \u2014 purely by watching the tape and understanding how Glenn\u2019s squad played against the Pack. <\/p>\n
A week later, the Chicago Bears will own a slightly better advantage than the Lions, considering they\u2019ll have two straight Jets tapes against the NFC North. For Ben Johnson, the degree to which he\u2019ll have to guess decreases, considering he can more plainly see how the Jets play against two teams he knows inside and out.<\/p>\n
While there\u2019s no getting around playing the NFC North, lining up three consecutive games against the division creates a disadvantage in the film-watching phase. Playing the division in a more spread-out variety creates more randomness since teams rarely remain the same over the course of an entire season.<\/p>\n
At the same time, let\u2019s not forget that Glenn knows that division himself. Oh yeah, he sort of knows Mr. Campbell pretty well, too. <\/p>\n
Nonetheless, the trend also appears later in the season. <\/p>\n
The Jets play the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 8, the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 9, and the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 11, establishing a three-out-of-four situation later in the season. Sprinkle in the Week 14 game against the Denver Broncos, and another divisional stretch is born. <\/p>\n
Not a death knell<\/p>\n
Despite the legitimate disadvantage, this sticky situation is by no means a death knell. In fact, the strategic head coach can use it to his advantage. <\/p>\n
For that to happen, Glenn would have to showcase a versatile, no-fear mindset when game-planning each week. He\u2019d also have to feel comfortable with the idea that his team could accomplish a chameleon-like first month. <\/p>\n
Interestingly, the last exciting Jets start to a season featured this very situation. After losing to the Baltimore Ravens in Week 1, the 2022 Jets faced three straight AFC North opponents. <\/p>\n
A miracle road win over the Cleveland Browns got the party started. Despite falling to the Cincinnati Bengals at MetLife Stadium, they hit the road strong by upsetting the Pittsburgh Steelers. <\/p>\n
The 2-1 stretch against the AFC North catapulted them to a 5-2 start. Unfortunately, they lost Breece Hall<\/a> and Alijah Vera-Tucker for the season in Denver, while winning that fifth game, but the point of the story holds firm. <\/p>\nAt the end of the day, divisional stretches like these are far from a death sentence, but there\u2019s certainly an established twist in the scheme game. How Aaron Glenn and the New York Jets handle the situation will be quite interesting to commence the 2026 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The National Football League conducts its business with authority. From the pomp and circumstance of the Super Bowl…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":898605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2051],"tags":[1585,391,113,198,7,6494,3228,345,226,1917,255,2321,2097,6,4403,6531,7823,43305,3234],"class_list":["post-898604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-jets","tag-aaron-glenn","tag-chicago-bears","tag-detroit-lions","tag-featured","tag-football","tag-frank-reich","tag-free-content","tag-green-bay-packers","tag-jets","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-jets","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkjets","tag-nfl","tag-ny-jets-coaches","tag-ny-jets-column","tag-ny-jets-image","tag-ny-jets-schedule-scores","tag-standard"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116621012384188456","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898604","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=898604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/898605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}