The Jets Offense Has Done a 180 on 3rd Down

Yes, we’re only 3 weeks into the season. But this is the time when new trends begin to emerge for every team. For the Jets offense, the new trend has taken place on 3rd down, a situation that has been a nightmare for nearly a decade. Just look at these numbers going back to 2016:

Horrendous. It’s tough to win that way, even with a good defense. And we saw that last season as the Jets offense finished dead last on 3rd down, which contributed to them also finishing 26th in time of possession. There were games where it felt like the defense was on the field for all 4 quarters. New York finished the year with a 7-10 record despite a defense that ranked 3rd in DVOA.

The good news for the Jets is that it looks like those days are over. Through the first 3 weeks of the 2024 season, they are the #1 offense in the NFL on 3rd down.

Last Thursday night against the Patriots, they converted 10 of 15 opportunities. Included in those 5 failed attempts were a 3rd-and-19 and a 3rd-and-33 where the Jets decided to just pick up some easy yards underneath, all but conceding the down. Another failed attempt included a throw out of bounds before the Jets attempted a last-second field goal at the end of the first half.

Basically, unless they faced 3rd-and-infinity, the Jets were going to convert.

It’s not hard to identify the main reason for this rapid turnaround on the money down. Aaron Rodgers is the quarterback.

Against New England, we saw vintage Rodgers in numerous ways - The safety manipulation, the quick release, the deadly-accurate throws, and the ability to take advantage of 1-on-1’s.

Most surprisingly, however, was the mobility Rodgers showed off multiple times throughout the night to evade rushers and keep drives alive on 3rd down:

Left, right, it didn’t matter which direction Rodgers escaped the pocket. He looked comfortable either scrambling for yards or buying time and then making pinpoint throws.

This was an element of Rodgers’ game that he had started to rely on less and less in recent years, even before the Achilles injury. No one anticipated his legs would be a factor with the Jets. And through the first two games this season, he was more or less a statue in the pocket.

But if evading pass rushers is back in Rodgers’ toolkit, that changes the calculation for what this Jets offense can be.

Of course, the majority of Rodgers’ game is still from the pocket. And he appears to be getting more and more comfortable working through his reads and orchestrating this offense from it each week.

This 3rd-and-9 in the 2nd quarter was a great example. The Jets were in a 3x1 with Garrett Wilson aligned to the back side: