On the day after a 23-12 beatdown at the hands of the Bears, Jets coach Aaron Glenn spent Monday morning trying to emphasize the positive.
That may sound crazy for Jets fans who watched their team play one of the worst games in franchise history — and that’s saying something. That may be tough after being fed every crazy stat from this game that showed the historical ineptitude of the Jets on Sunday.
But when Glenn met with the media virtually Monday morning, he tried to push back on the tidal wave of negativity that is coming his and the Jets’ way after this one.
“There are some positives that came out of this, and sometimes everybody just focuses on the negative part of it,” Glenn said, “but our deal is we’re going to make sure we try to continue to improve on that and hopefully from the outside our fans will see that and again, we’ll just look at the next week and we’re just trying to go 1-0 each week and that’s the thing that we’re focused on and that’s the only thing I want our fans to focus on. We’re going to flush this game. We’re going to move ahead. We’ve got a team that’s coming in that’s playing pretty good, so our focus is to make sure we beat that team and that’s it.”
The Jets are 1-3 after losing three straight games, and any positive vibes that existed after close losses to the Packers and Lions disappeared as the Bears went up and down the field on the Jets. The numbers from this one were staggering, none more than the 89-32 play disparity in favor of the Bears.
Glenn took pride in the team’s red zone defense. The Bears went 2-for-7 in the red zone and Glenn also pointed to the Jets running game, which averaged 4.2 yards per carry but did not get many chances because the Bears had the ball all day.
Glenn also pointed out the Jets lost to three strong playoff contenders, but he did not mention the Bears played with backup quarterback Tyson Bagent.
“Here’s what I do know, these last three games that we had, we knew exactly what we were going against,” Glenn said. “We were going against a team that have won the division, we were going against teams that have high-powered offense, and I’m just speaking defensively right now, and we knew they were going to be in a situation where they just moved the ball and we have to do a good job as far as limiting points on defense. We didn’t do a good job of that against Detroit. I thought we did a good job against Green Bay, and then with this game, a high-powered team, I thought we did a good job of just limiting points as many times as they were in the red zone.”
Not many people predicted the Jets to win these past three games before the season, but the way they lost to the Packers and Bears has added more pain for Jets fans. The team now has four games that could determine their season — home against the Browns, at the Patriots and then two home games with the Dolphins and Raiders. The Jets need to find a way to win some games to keep their season alive and avoid the talk around the team shifting to next spring’s draft.
“Three straight losses is tough to stomach, and we all feel it — we need to win,” center Josh Myers said. “We haven’t necessarily seen the results in these last three games, but we will. We’re going to win games. I have all the faith in the world in that.”
