Jets' defense bounces back strongly against Browns after humbling loss to Bears
Jets head coach Aaron Glenn yells at officials during a game against the Cleveland Browns at MetLife Stadium on Sunday. Credit: Ed Murray
Aaron Glenn hasn’t had many good days since becoming the Jets' head coach. He definitely felt some relief after Sunday’s game after his players, especially the defense, responded to a humbling loss a week ago.
Glenn entered his news conference after the Jets’ 17-12 win over Cleveland and asked everyone how they were doing. After a few reporters said they were good, Glenn responded, “I am, too.”
This win snapped a three-game losing streak and took some heat off Glenn and his players. It was a night-and-day performance from what the Jets put on the field in Chicago a week earlier.
The Browns are not the Bears, but the Jets can build off the way they showed resolve by bouncing back the way they did, not only from last week but within the game.
Linebacker Demario Davis went as far as to call it “a historic win for this organization.” That’s overstating the situation a little, but his reasoning was that after three straight losses, the Jets could have wavered in their belief in themselves and each other. All of that “can weigh on an organization that has historically been disappointed,” Davis said.
Suffering another loss might have been tough to overcome for Glenn and the psyche of some of his players. The way the defense played and the mental toughness they displayed was a good sign for Glenn. He’s the defensive play-caller, after all, and his challenges to his players were heard.
The Jets allowed 492 yards to Chicago, let the Bears possess the ball for 42:45 and had only one sack.
Glenn said he had to make some changes to the Jets’ four-man rush because they weren’t affecting the pocket enough. They held Cleveland to 198 yards of offense, affected the pocket and disrupted Deshaun Watson all game with eight sacks and 13 quarterback hits. According to NextGen Stats, the Jets had 42 pressures on the mobile Watson. The defensive line definitely — and finally — made its presence felt.
The Jets’ front hadn’t recorded a sack in two straight games before Sunday. They had six in this game. Rookie David Bailey had three. Will McDonald sealed the game with a strip-sack on Watson and a fumble recovery in the game’s final minute. Rookie Darrell Jackson Jr. had a sack and two passes batted down at the line of scrimmage.
“We ran into a buzzsaw last week,” Glenn said, “but the thing is these men did a really good job of responding, and I give those guys all the credit in the world, that they flushed what happened last week.”
According to Bailey, the members of the defense got together and made a list of things they needed to work on collectively and individually. Bailey said, “It just came down to analyzing the past mistakes that we had, analyzing our areas of weakness and spending extra time” working on it and bringing it into this game.
“We got guys that can actually rush the passer,” Glenn said. “It’s a players’ game. Sometimes you just don’t have it that week. It was a fact of putting all our heads together, everybody on the defensive staff, what do we need to do to make sure we put these guys in the right position. That’s what happened today.”
Al Iannazzone covers the Jets for Newsday after spending nearly two decades on the NBA beat with Knicks and Nets.
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