PITTSBURGH – The Jets lost their fourth straight game on Sunday night, a disheartening 37-15 loss to the Steelers. Here are some thoughts and observations from the game:

1. The difference between the two organizations could not have been greater on Sunday. Here you have the Steelers, who have had three coaches since 1969, and the Jets, who will likely be on their third coach in four months at the end of January.

The stable Steelers and the dysfunctional Jets.

Steelers coach Mike Tomlin made an incredibly brave decision on Sunday by starting Russell Wilson after they started 4-2 with Justin Fields at quarterback. There was some grumbling, but also a lot of ‘In Tomlin We Trust’. Tomlin was able to make such a decision because he has no owner who will interfere with his decisions or second guess him if things don’t work out. The Steelers are really “ignoring the noise” that the Jets always talk about.

The Jets listen to the noise and let it affect them. That leads to bad football decisions. Woody Johnson acts like a fan too often and it showed this month. The Jets are always worried about what fans and media say, instead of having a good plan and sticking to it.

This past month, Johnson fired head coach Robert Saleh without apparently consulting with anyone involved in football operations. He said it was his decision alone. So general manager Joe Douglas has essentially been sidelined. How is the general manager not involved in a decision to fire the coach? Now we hear on Sunday that Johnson was heavily involved in getting Haason Reddick to end his deficit. You think he didn’t push for Davante Adams?

Johnson should have talked to people who know the pulse of the locker room before ripping the heart out of the team by firing Saleh. This wasn’t a head coach losing the team. Players have expressed their love for Saleh privately and publicly since his dismissal. There was disbelief in the locker room after Johnson made that move and they haven’t played well since that move.

You can criticize Saleh’s coaching and no one can argue with his 20-36 record, but making a coaching change mid-season is a traumatic event for a football team. It’s something Johnson has no idea about. Instead of providing a steady hand like the Rooneys have done for over fifty years in Pittsburgh, Johnson gave the Jets a punch in the gut and they haven’t recovered since.

2. The Jets’ offense is starting to look a lot like last year, when they simply gave the ball to Breece Hall or Garrett Wilson and hoped they would make a big play. Wilson wasn’t as involved Sunday due to the arrival of Adams, but Hall accounted for 103 receiving yards. These weren’t well-designed passing plays, just check-downs to Hall, where he had a lot of yards after the catch.

The Jets offense is now broken. The running game is terrible and the passing game doesn’t put any emphasis on defense. Relying on Hall to avoid and break tackles won’t work all season long.

I know everyone wanted to blame Nathaniel Hackett and now Todd Downing will take charge, but Rodgers has a lot of control over the line of scrimmage of the game the Jets are playing. He is as much to blame as the play caller.

3. The Jets roster features a lot of big names. It also has a lot of great ages and it shows. Douglas likes to sign older players. Tyron Smith (33) looks old. Mike Williams (30) is not what he used to be. Aaron Rodgers (40) looks like an average to slightly above-average quarterback, but certainly not like Rodgers in his heyday. We’ve seen this before. Last year, Douglas signed Dalvin Cook and that was it.

It’s a Jets tradition to sign players who were once great and are now past their prime. Art Monk played for the Jets. Ed Reed played for the Jets. Sometimes they get the last few drops from a player’s career, but often they only get a glimpse of what the player used to be like.

The Jets look old now. I’m sure they’ll have games where the older players rely on their muscle memory to play better, but the roster is much more flawed than we thought in August.

4. Here’s the good news. The Patriots are the next team on the schedule and they look terrible. The Patriots are a game to get right for the Jets and they can build some momentum if they go out and dominate in New England. The schedule is otherwise incredibly simple, with the Texans and Bills being the only major contenders left on the schedule.

It’s hard to imagine the Jets will turn this around after losing four straight, but they can. There are 10 games left and there are no flawless teams in the 2024 NFL. As bad as the Jets problems seem right now, there are a lot of other teams feeling the same way right now.

But the Jets have to take care of business in New England. They dominated the first meeting a month ago (it only feels like a year ago). They need to do it again and regain some of the swagger they started the season with.

Revealing stat

Jets receivers had just 164 yards on Sunday night. The Jets had 276 passing yards, but 105 of those were to running backs, with Hall accounting for 103 and Tyler Conklin the other seven. The Jets passing game relied way too much on checkdowns in this game.

Surprising number of snaps

Davante Adams played 55 of 57 snaps in the game. I was surprised to see him there as much as after he had just arrived on Tuesday and had not played in Las Vegas for the past three weeks. I know he understands the offense, but I was surprised he never actually came off the field.

Game ball

Right tackle Morgan Moses played his ass off. He allowed one pressure all game from Steelers edge rusher TJ Watt. Moses is also playing with a bad knee. It was an impressive performance.