Sunday was an afternoon filled with inexplicable events in the NFL. Week 8 delivered last-minute victories in four of the early games before the Commanders delivered the finish of the season with Jayden Daniels’ Hail Mary to Noah Brown against the Bears. We saw a pair of 1-6 teams pull out upsets and a 1-5 team play, in one way, the worst performance of the entire season. The team that has been playing the most dominant football over the past month had two drops that would have horrified the 2023 Chiefs wide receivers.

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Let’s talk through these plays and more by attempting to somehow and break down the inexplicable moments from Week 8. There’s only one place to start, and that’s the ending in Landover, Maryland:

Jump to a Week 8 question:
Why did the Bears give a lineman a key carry?
Why was Sean Payton sticking it to the Panthers?
How did the Lions score 52 points with 225 yards?
Why are the Chiefs still playing Wanya Morris?
Why couldn’t Seattle get out of its own way?
What were the Colts thinking in the first half?
Did the Ravens lose their ability to catch the ball?
How has the Jets’ defense collapsed lately?

What were the Bears doing as they tried to defend that Hail Mary?

The first matchup between rookie quarterbacks Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels didn’t go as anybody planned. The two offenses both ran into major roadblocks, as the Bears went 2-for-13 on third and fourth downs, while the Commanders went 0-for-3 in the red zone. Washington went up 12-0 and held its lead until there were 25 seconds remaining, when a late Williams drive ended with a Roschon Johnson touchdown plunge. Chicago converted the 2-pointer to go up 15-12.

You saw what happened next. After a couple of completions, the Commanders got in range for a Hail Mary. Daniels scrambled for what felt like minutes, fired a pass downfield and got a perfect tip off the crowd into the waiting arms of a totally uncovered Noah Brown, who brought the pass in for a game-winning touchdown. You’ll never see an easier catch on a Hail Mary in your life.

What went wrong for the Bears? Let’s start with the front. If you go back and watch Aaron Rodgers’ Hail Mary completion to Allen Lazard against the Bills earlier this season, you’ll see that Buffalo sent a two-man rush at Rodgers and used a third defender as a spy to try to close on him as he escaped the pocket and began to drive into his throw. That gave the Jets receivers plenty of time to get downfield and didn’t prevent the veteran quarterback from delivering a perfect pass.

That play took place with eight seconds left, and so the Bills were in a situation when Rodgers might have tried to complete a quick pass to the sideline, forcing Buffalo coach Sean McDermott to essentially waste two defenders who didn’t end up being involved in the play. The Hail Mary worked because Taylor Rapp failed to tip away the ball, with Lazard instead outjumping his catch attempt for a score.

The Bears didn’t have to worry about another completion to the sidelines in this game with two seconds to go, so they had two more defenders with whom to work. Despite this and Rodgers’ success hitting the long completion against virtually no pass pressure, though, Chicago coach Matt Eberflus decided to play things conservatively. He rushed three linemen and had a fourth defender as a spy for when Daniels inevitably escaped the pocket. Again, none of these defenders got close to the quarterback. Blitzing the Hail Mary isn’t a guarantee a defense will stop it, as Rodgers and Bruce Arians can tell you, but getting some semblance of pressure is the best way to blow it up.

Behind the throw, the Bears blew their coverage. Some teams prefer to get physical at the line of scrimmage with wide receivers to throw off timing on these plays while keeping their safeties at the goal line, but Chicago decided to drop all seven coverage defenders back into the end zone for the final snap. Either solution is fine, but no team’s playbook calls for a cornerback to be jawing with fans with his back turned to the play as receivers are running downfield, which appears to be what cornerback Tyrique Stevenson was doing in a video shot from the stands.

While I’d hesitate to assign responsibilities to each defender and how the Bears structure their Hail Mary coverage on this play, it’s true Stevenson was the cornerback on the left side of the defense for this snap, and the wide receiver furthest to that side of the field was Brown. Stevenson didn’t specifically follow Brown to the middle of the field before the Hail Mary at first in the way that he would have if this were something like a man-match coverage, but by the end, he was in the throng of seven players trying to tip or catch the ball.

The one person who wasn’t was Brown. Knowing there will be a huge mass of players fighting for the ball where it’s set to come down, offenses almost always have a player whose job it is to stand behind the pile and try to bring in a pass that is tipped out of or off of that pile of humanity. If you look at Russell Wilson’s Hail Mary touchdown against the Commanders from last season, you’ll see Jerry Jeudy standing about 8 yards behind the pile, with a defender around him.

Again, while I’d hesitate to assign that responsibility to a particular person on the Bears’ defense, we know for sure it’s somebody whose job it is to cover the receiver standing behind the pile. ESPN analyst Matt Bowen shared a coverage that refers to this defender as the “savior,” whose goal is to take away the potential of catching a tipped pass. That can be by knocking the ball away, but given that there’s no pass interference once a ball is tipped, this defender has significant leeway to physically remove the receiver from the play.

Old scheme to defend the Hail Mary pass…#Bears were missing the “savior” on that one. Needed a defender to play the tipped ball. pic.twitter.com/8c7v24FcYp

— Matt Bowen (@MattBowen41) October 27, 2024

Brown was subtle. He didn’t deliberately stand yards away from the throng, which might have attracted attention. When everyone else was going to jump for the ball, he simply stayed put. The Bears got hands on the ball, but instead of knocking it down, all they could do was tip it back into the air. And with no savior covering Brown, all he had to do was bring in the tipped ball for a game-winning score in an 18-15 game.

Why did the Bears give a backup offensive lineman a key goal-line carry?

Everyone on the planet has had that experience, at one point or another, where they want to emulate someone cool. You see a person wearing something fashionable or walking a certain way and you think, if even for a moment, you could put on that piece of clothing or move the same way and be just as trendy. I can say from firsthand experience and embarrassment that it often doesn’t work, but that’s part of being a human being.

Football is no different, and it certainly seems like the Bears saw what the Lions did against the Cowboys a couple of weeks ago and wanted to be just as cool as their divisional rivals. As a response to last season’s Skippergate, the Lions spent much of the fourth quarter against Dallas seemingly trying to get their offensive linemen touches with the football.

In a key moment against the Commanders on Sunday, the Bears took their shot. On third-and-goal from the 1-yard line with Chicago trailing by five points, it brought in backup offensive line Doug Kramer to serve as the fullback in front of Roschon Johnson. It then attempted to hand the ball to Kramer to plunge in for a lead-taking touchdown, only for the center to fumble the exchange, which the Commanders recovered.

One of the important factors with cool, of course, is timing. The Bears didn’t pick up that lesson. The Lions were getting their offensive linemen involved while they were up by 38 points and had a win expectancy of 100%. The Bears tried to hand the ball to a player who has never touched the ball in the NFL, who didn’t record a carry in college and likely rarely toted the rock in high school. They did this on their most important snap of the game up to that point, which was also his third offensive snap of the contest.

Going through the touchdown data from Pro Football Reference, I can’t find an example of a player who weighs at least 300 pounds scoring a rushing touchdown in a situation when his team was trailing. It’s one thing to try throwing the ball to an eligible receiver in the second quarter or to give a defensive lineman a carry in a moment when a team is up by a bunch of points.

Calling a third-down gotta-have-it play where a team hands the ball off to an offensive lineman who had 18 career offensive snaps before Sunday? I love trick plays, and I’m often frustrated when people criticize one that doesn’t work for not looking good — because that’s the nature of trick plays. I loved when the Lions tried a speed option on a fake punt last week, even though they clearly messed up the blocking and failed as a result.

In this situation, what are the pros and cons? The offense is getting a bigger body to carry the ball and relying entirely on the element of surprise. In return, it’s asking a player who surely must have been terrified in the moment to do things he’s likely never done in a game of any significance, including field a handoff and carry the ball forward. The offense is passing up the opportunity to do that with any of its more experienced and athletic players. It’s dramatically increasing the risk of something terrible (a fumble) happening in the hopes an offensive lineman would be better than a fullback at scoring in the same situation. That’s a risk-reward that just doesn’t add up, and it ended up costing the Bears critical points in a game they eventually lost.

Why was Sean Payton sticking it to the Panthers?

Speaking of teams and what they roll out late in blowouts, the final quarter of Denver’s 28-14 win over Carolina was bizarre. The first three quarters were mostly nondescript, as rookie quarterback Bo Nix had an efficient day against a dismal Panthers defense, leading three consecutive touchdown drives in the second quarter. By the time we saw the Broncos take over with 14:11 to go in the fourth quarter, they led by 21 points and had the game all but won.

Payton seemed to think this was the time to stick it to his former divisional rivals. After the Broncos drove into Carolina territory, their drive stalled and they set up for a 55-yard field goal, only for offensive tackle Garett Bolles to false start. In the thin air of Colorado, a 60-yarder might be in Wil Lutz’s range, but Payton instead called for a fake field goal, which didn’t work.

OK. It’s a little weird to burn a fake field goal on film up 21 points in the fourth quarter, but fourth-and-8 on the 42-yard line is sort of an awkward spot, and maybe the Broncos saw something in the Panthers’ field goal defense that lent itself to a fake. With 10:10 to go, 21 points is a big lead, but it’s not a guarantee. If that had been the only weird play in the fourth quarter, it wouldn’t mean much of anything.

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Bo Nix’s 3rd TD pass of the game goes to Jaleel McLaughlin

Jaleel McLaughlin catches a 9-yard pass from Bo Nix and powers through for a touchdown, extending the Broncos’ lead.

Five minutes later, the Broncos got the ball back after a Bryce Young interception and drove down the field. Facing a fourth-and-2 on the Carolina 43-yard line with 4:29 to go, pretty much any option would have been reasonable. They could have tried a long field goal. They could have punted. They could have tried to run the ball, boot Nix, work quick game or use just about anything in the playbook.

Instead, Payton chose this as the right time for a double pass? Nix threw it backward to Courtland Sutton, who then tossed it across the field to fullback Mike Burton for a 28-yard gain as Denver coaches literally jumped for joy along the sideline. The Broncos moved the ball into the red zone, although they ended up failing to score when Sutton fumbled at the 1-yard line and the Panthers recovered.

I’m not here to be any sort of moral compass or criticize a coach for running up the score. If Payton wants to throw the ball up three touchdowns with five minutes to go, he can do whatever he wants. If he wants to go for it on fourth down, I’m always excited. But a double pass in that situation feels bizarrely pointed. No coach is going to have that in his playbook and want to use that up three scores with four minutes to go. Is there somebody in the Panthers organization or somebody on the opposing sideline who upset Payton? Did he really want to get Sutton going as a passer?

ESPN’s play-by-play data goes back through 2007. There has been only one other time over that span when a full-time wide receiver has thrown a pass in the fourth quarter with his team up by 20 or more points. Guess whose team it was? It was Sean Payton’s Saints, with Willie Snead taking a backward pass from Drew Brees and finding Tim Hightower for a long touchdown. Even that was a third-down play with just over 10 minutes to go. The decision to pull out a fourth-down double-pass on Sunday was even more surprising. I guess defenses playing a Payton-coached team now have to prepare for trick plays when they’re down three scores in the fourth quarter.

How did the Lions throw for 94 yards and score 52 points?

I don’t believe anybody was shocked to see the Lions drop 52 points on the Titans on Sunday, but the way they got to 52 has to be considered pretty surprising. Quarterback Jared Goff went 12-of-15 for 85 yards, and while he threw three touchdown passes, the Lions managed only 225 yards of offense. If we go through the last decade and look at teams that gained between 220 and 230 yards in a single game, you’ll find that no team has topped 40 points and just five have even managed to make it past 30.

The Lions scored 52, of course, because their offense didn’t have to go very far to score. They had four different first-half possessions start at or inside the Titans’ 25-yard line, the first time that has happened since 2002, when the Saints got four short fields in a row against a Steve Spurrier-coached Washington team. Detroit converted five different drives that started no more than 26 yards away from the end zone for touchdowns and added a return score.

While turnovers played a part, one of the key reasons the Lions were able to get into those short fields was an absolutely horrendous performance by Tennessee’s special teams. The Titans allowed a 64-yard punt return to Kalif Raymond in the first half before he took a second punt 90 yards to the house for a score after the break. Khalil Dorsey fielded a kickoff and returned that 72 yards to set up the Lions up with another short field. The Titans were even flagged for an illegal formation penalty on a kickoff return.

Is that the worst special teams performance of the year? Yes. By expected points added (EPA), the Titans cost themselves 14.1 points on special teams Sunday, marking just the third time all season a team has cost itself more than nine points of EPA on special teams in a single game. Most teams hurt their special teams EPA on bad days by missing field goals, but the Titans attempted (and hit) only two extra points. If we focus on how a team did on kicks and punts, they had the worst special teams performance in those elements of the game by any team in any game since 2019.

And while anyone can have a bad day, the Titans didn’t exactly come into Sunday with glowing reviews on special teams. They ranked last in the league in special teams DVOA heading into the game, a figure that comes despite the fact that Nick Folk hasn’t missed a field goal or extra point. Earlier this season, they gave up punt blocks in consecutive games, including a four-man rush by the Jets that somehow produced a free runner and a blocked punt in Week 2.

Would the Titans be good if they had competent special teams play? Probably not. At 1-6, though, they can’t afford to give away field position and touchdowns on mental mistakes and sloppy play. There are a lot of things coach Brian Callahan has to fix if he wants to right the ship, but this team isn’t good enough to survive one disastrous special teams play per game, let alone three.

Why are the Chiefs still playing Wanya Morris at left tackle?

Last season, the Chiefs were noticeably worse when an injury to Donovan Smith forced them to protect Patrick Mahomes’ blind side with Morris. The rookie left tackle started four games and played 339 snaps. With Smith on the field, Mahomes posted a 73.4 QBR, one of the league’s best marks. When they turned to Morris, Mahomes’ QBR dropped all the way to 44.5. His sack rate with Morris on the field nearly doubled.

After the Super Bowl LVIII win, Kansas City let Smith hit free agency and used a second-round pick on lineman Kingsley Suamataia. He started the first two games of the season at left tackle, but after a brutal stretch against Bengals star Trey Hendrickson, coach Andy Reid took out the rookie and put Morris back into the lineup. Suamataia has played just five offensive snaps since.

Morris hasn’t been great. NFL Next Gen Stats data says he has allowed three sacks and 18 pressures this season. After committing an illegal hands to the face penalty that wiped away a fourth-down conversion in his debut performance against the Bengals, however, he had committed only one penalty over the subsequent four games, and even that came after the whistle as part of offsetting unnecessary roughness calls.

In Sunday’s 27-20 win over the Raiders, though, Morris was flagged four times. In addition to another illegal hands to the face penalty on the sack he allowed to Tyree Wilson, he was penalized three times for holding. That includes holds on consecutive plays inside his own 10-yard line, with Maxx Crosby simply physically overpowering him to draw the first of the two straight flags. After the Chiefs were backed up to their 2-yard line, Mahomes had a pass batted at the line and picked off for his ninth interception of the season.

Morris wasn’t responsible for the interception, but he helped put a scare into just about every Chiefs fan earlier in the game. With 28 seconds to go, K’Lavon Chaisson beat him around the edge and chased down Mahomes, who threw the ball away while falling down. Mahomes was slow to get up after the hit and moved gingerly for the next couple of plays, although the quarterback seemed mostly back to his usual self after halftime.

Obviously, a Mahomes injury would crater Kansas City’s chances of three-peating. The vast majority of the decisions the Chiefs have made since their loss in Super Bowl LV to the Buccaneers have been about prioritizing protecting Mahomes. They’ve drafted Creed Humphrey and Trey Smith, signed Joe Thuney and Jawaan Taylor to big deals in free agency and traded for Orlando Brown Jr.

The one glaring exception to that rule is how they’ve handled left tackle this season. Donovan Smith is still a free agent, and while it’s unclear whether he’s in game shape, it’s still shocking to me that the Chiefs haven’t brought him back. It’s clear they don’t yet trust Suamataia, and I’m not sure they should trust Morris. And while they keep winning with what feels like B-minus performances given their talent each week, I don’t want to see them try to keep that up without Mahomes under center.

Why couldn’t the Seahawks get out of their own way in the red zone?

While the Bills eventually pulled away from the Seahawks to win by 21 points on Sunday afternoon, Seattle had its chances. On back-to-back possessions in the second quarter, it very nearly scored, only to be denied by its own mistakes and missteps.

After the Bills scored on a 14-play, 90-yard drive in the first quarter, the Seahawks responded with a long drive of their own. Starting from their own 9-yard line after a punt, Geno Smith & Co. marched 89 yards on 10 plays, moving the ball to Buffalo’s 2-yard line for a first-and-goal opportunity. After penetration by Ed Oliver blew up a Kenneth Walker run on first down, though, disaster struck on second down. Connor Williams snapped the ball over Smith’s head with such velocity that the Seahawks eventually recovered the ball on Buffalo’s 30-yard line. They then committed a delay of game penalty before the next play and eventually settled for a field goal.

After that, they forced Josh Allen’s first interception of the season, with Josh Jobe returning the ball to the Buffalo 7-yard line. Runs by Walker and Zach Charbonnet got the ball to the 1-yard line, but after Walker was stuffed when H-back Brady Russell failed to block a charging Baylon Spector on third down, things got worse. Smith was tripped by Williams after fielding the snap on fourth-and-goal, costing Seattle a shot at points.

What could have been 14 points in a matter of minutes instead turned into three. By the time the Seahawks got back into the red zone, they were down 31-3. We don’t know how the game would have turned out had they managed to get an early lead, but it couldn’t have hurt. And while they have been efficient in the red zone this season, they’ve made an average of 2.4 trips inside the opposing team’s 20-yard line per game, which ranks 29th in the league. Only the Panthers, Chargers and Browns have been worse. If a team doesn’t get into the red zone often, it needs to take advantage when it can. And with the Seahawks down to fourth-string right tackle Michael Jerrell as a result of injuries, they need the rest of their offensive line to step up.

Why were the Colts working their short passing game during the final minute of the first half?

There’s a time and place for everything. The Colts understandably want to develop Anthony Richardson into a great passer, and great passers need to be able to operate within all levels of the field. If the Colts expect Richardson to become Josh Allen two or three years from now, they need to be willing to put him in the deep end at certain points of the game to see if he can swim.

After starting the game by going 2-of-13 passing for 81 yards, though, I’m not sure the time to do that is in the shadow of his own end zone. Taking over on their own 5-yard line with a minute to go, the Colts started their two-minute drill by running Jonathan Taylor on first down for 7 yards. While the Texans had all of their timeouts, coach DeMeco Ryans didn’t stop the clock after the play, suggesting he was willing to go to halftime.

Another short run would have caused the clock to continue running and potentially brought the half to a close. Instead, the Colts went no-huddle, snapped the ball with 39 seconds left and dropped Richardson back to pass. He threw a curl to the opposite sideline that was nearly intercepted, only for Kamari Lassiter to drop the ball on the way down. That’s a good escape, but after that, the clock is stopped and the Texans can get the ball back with a punt.

Most coaches would be willing to run the risk of getting stopped on the ground if it meant taking the ball out of their inexperienced quarterback’s hands after a nearly catastrophic interception. With the Colts well out of field goal range, it was tough to imagine they had much hope of scoring. Their primary goal was to avoid giving the ball back to Houston, either via a turnover or a defensive stop and a punt. Given the inconsistency of their passing game, a run with Richardson or Taylor certainly seemed like their best choice.

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Anthony Richardson makes a poor throw for an INT

Jalen Pitre jumps in front of an Anthony Richardson throw to set up the Texans in the red zone.

Coach Shane Steichen instead called for a quick game concept on a hitch route to Josh Downs, but Richardson’s throw was jumped and picked by Jalen Pitre, who returned the ball inside the 10-yard line. C.J. Stroud threw a touchdown pass to Tank Dell on the next play, gifting the Texans a free seven points just before halftime. That swing could have ended up deciding the game in what would eventually be a 23-20 Texans victory.

Richardson finished 10-of-32 for 175 yards with five sacks and one passing score. While he was let down by drops and penalties at times and hit Downs with a beautiful throw to set up another touchdown later in the game, there’s no dressing up 10-of-32 for 175 yards and a back-breaking interception to look very pretty. Richardson ranks 27th in the league in QBR (38.4), ahead of only Gardner Minshew, Will Levis and Deshaun Watson. His minus-12.5% completion percentage over expectation (CPOE) is miles worse than any other starter’s.

And while Richardson was expected to make up some of the gaps in his passing ability as an inexperienced starter by contributing with designed runs, concerns about his propensity for taking hits and battling injuries have led Steichen to keep a foot on the brake there. While Richardson will always scramble and get used on designed runs near the goal line, he had 14 designed runs outside of the 10-yard line in what amounted to 2½ games last season. He has 16 such runs in five-plus games this season. He took another unnecessary hit Sunday on the final drive of the game, lowering his shoulder to take on a defender as opposed to attempting to get out of bounds, and this in a situation when the clock was of the utmost importance.

The NFL isn’t a league known for its patience, and Richardson entered the league as a project after making just 13 starts at Florida. His upside is obvious. He has made some of the best throws we’ve seen by any passer this season. But even the early Allen comparisons fall short when he goes 4-for-13 and 2-for-15 in the first halves of consecutive games, as he has over the past couple of weeks. It’s too early to give up on Richardson — the shoulder injury he suffered last year stalled his development — but after making his 10th NFL start Sunday, he doesn’t look much more refined or reliable than he did in his first.

Did the Ravens lose their ability to catch the football on offense and defense?

If you’ve ever wanted to distill the essence of Jameis Winston as an NFL quarterback into 20 seconds, just save Cleveland’s final two plays on offense for posterity. On a first-and-15 with 1:08 to go, Winston faced down a blitz and badly sailed a throw over an open Elijah Moore, only for star safety Kyle Hamilton to finish what had been a spectacular performance by dropping the potential game-sealing interception.

On the next play? The Ravens sent another seven-man blitz, but this time, Winston dropped a perfect pass over the top of Eddie Jackson to wide receiver Cedric Tillman, who brought it in for the game-winning touchdown. Like the closer who walks the bases loaded before striking out the side, Winston couldn’t help but try to throw the game away before ending it as the hero.

Hamilton’s dropped interception was the peak of a wildly frustrating day for the Ravens, whose five-game winning streak came to a close. I counted at least three dropped interceptions, plays that led to 10 points for the Browns. The defense wasn’t set on Tillman’s first touchdown of the day. Hamilton blew up a third-down screen to hold the Browns to a field goal and strip-sacked Winston to set up a short field and a touchdown, but he won’t forget that would-be interception for a long time.

The Ravens rank 28th in QBR allowed when they don’t get pressure, and while they were without Marlon Humphrey and first-round pick Nate Wiggins at cornerback, it’s telling that they benched prized 2022 free agent addition Marcus Williams, who didn’t play a single snap, while expanding the roles of Jackson and Ar’Darius Washington. Jackson allowed two touchdowns in coverage Sunday.

The most impressive drop of the game might have come on the offensive side of the ball. After Lamar Jackson scrambled for nearly eight seconds to create space, he eventually lofted up a pass that traveled 58 yards in the air to a wide-open Rashod Bateman, who lost the throw in the sun and was knocked over by the ball when it hit him.

While Jackson finished 23-of-38 for 289 yards and two touchdowns, this was a sloppy performance by the Baltimore offense. He was lucky to get away with a couple of early would-be interceptions of his own. The Ravens were stopped on a fourth-and-1 attempt inside the 10-yard line on the opening drive of the game when they used Derrick Henry as a Wildcat quarterback. Jackson overthrew Zay Flowers on a double move for what should have been a 31-yard touchdown. Oh, and Justin Tucker missed a 50-yard field goal attempt that would have tied the game early in the fourth quarter.

I’d classify this more as a series of strange occurrences than some fatal flaw, but after a five-game stretch of impressive performances, Sunday’s loss reminded us that Jackson and Henry alone aren’t enough to single-handedly dominate teams every week. This is the same team that lost to the Raiders in Week 2. We know the Ravens are capable of beating anybody on their day, but they are still simultaneously able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, too.

Wait, the Jets couldn’t get stops against the Patriots?

It’s getting late awfully early for the Jets, who lost their fifth consecutive game and fell to 2-6. Getting beaten by the Patriots is one thing, but to do it on a day when Jacoby Brissett was forced to come in for an injured Drake Maye and against a team that coach Jerod Mayo described as “soft” earlier in the week? If this isn’t bottom for the 2024 Jets, it’s going to be concerning to see what ends up being worse.

The panic firing of coach Robert Saleh has done absolutely nothing to solve the problems with this team. The Jets have continued to commit more penalties than their opponents, including a delay of game before a 2-point try against New England. They’re still getting off to slow, sloppy starts, with interim coach Jeff Ulbrich being forced to call all three of his first-half timeouts in the first quarter Sunday.

Saleh’s departure and the promotion of Ulbrich, however, appears to have undone the one thing the Jets relied on to justify the entire Aaron Rodgers experience: Their defense has fallen apart since the move. Through the first five games of the season, they were productive on the defensive side of the ball, ranking sixth in EPA per play and fourth in points allowed per drive.

In the three games since the coaching change, they have fallen to last in EPA per play and 26th in points allowed per drive. They’ve failed to force a single turnover and are allowing teams to convert nearly 77% of their series into another first down or touchdown. Before Saleh’s departure, that figure was below 64%, which was the fifth-best mark. The only reason the defense hasn’t been worse has been opposing receivers dropping a league-high 8.3% of their targets over that stretch.

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Rodgers: Jets need to ‘make peace’ with darkness

QB Aaron Rodgers says the Jets need to “make peace” with darkness after the team’s Week 8 loss to the Patriots.

On Sunday, with a five-point lead and 2:57 to go, all the Jets needed to do to win was come up with a stop of Brissett and the league’s least imposing offense. They couldn’t do it. When they sent a big blitz at Brissett on third-and-9, they left a gap free and allowed the quarterback to escape with a scramble past D.J. Reed for 14 yards. On the ensuing third-and-10, Kayshon Boutte beat Sauce Gardner on an underthrown deep post for 34 yards. Boutte got within inches of the end zone on a third-and-goal slant, but with their season potentially on the line, the New York run defense wasn’t able to stop Rhamondre Stevenson from plunging in on fourth-and-inches for the game-winning score.

The Jets might sit around and grumble that they would have won this game if Greg Zuerlein hadn’t missed a 44-yard field goal and an extra point, which later led them to go for 2, which also failed after the delay-of-game penalty. Making a change at kicker would be an easy lever to pull after firing Saleh and trading for Davante Adams in consecutive weeks. Whichever Jets fans still believe this team has the ability to make a deep playoff run could take solace that the organization is actively and elegantly rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking ship.

The idea underpinning the decision to trade for Rodgers and shoot for a Super Bowl with a quarterback in his 40s has been that the Jets have an elite defense. They did in 2022 and again in 2023. They were very good before Saleh was fired earlier this month. While three games is a small sample size, the defense has been abysmal after making the coaching change, with two of the three games over that stretch coming against Russell Wilson, Maye and Brissett. If the defense isn’t great, there’s no hope of turning things around.