At the scouting combine a month after he was hired in February, Jets coach Aaron Glenn declared, “We’re here to win now.”
Nearly eight months later, the Jets are 0-5 and are the only winless team in the NFL.
After finishing with a 5-12 record a season ago, not many believed that Glenn would be able to turn around the Jets quickly. But when he was asked if he had underestimated the challenge of the Jets’ job, Glenn defended his comments from February.
“What coach is not here to win now?” Glenn asked the reporter. “Every coach is here to win now. What you didn’t say is what I said, “I’m not thinking about the Super Bowl, I’m not thinking about playoffs, I’m thinking about building a foundation.”
“That’s exactly what we’re doing. So, every coach in the NFL, that’s what you’re here for is to win. I’m not changing that at all. Yes, we are here to win now. We’re absolutely here, have we done it yet? No, we haven’t. I understand that. We’re 0-5 and we own that, but I do know this, that’s not going to stop us from doing everything we can to win.”
The 2025 version of the Jets wasn’t considered a playoff contender ahead of the season, especially after releasing Aaron Rodgers, Davante Adams, and C.J. Mosley during the offseason. But it was never supposed to look this bad five weeks into the season.
In addition to being the lone winless club in the league, the Jets are also the only team that has not registered a takeaway this season. In fact, the Jets are the first team in NFL history not to record a takeaway during their first five games, according to ESPN Research.
The latest debacle came during the Jets’ 37-22 loss to the Cowboys on Sunday. The Jets’ defense, which had finished in the top five in terms of yards allowed over the previous three seasons, has been one of the worst units in the league.
Gang Green is allowed 31.7 points per game, which is the second-worst in the NFL, behind only Baltimore. The team’s pass rush has also been nonexistent after registering three sacks in the Jets’ last four games.
New York Jets’ Breece Hall (20) cries the ball during an NFL football game against the Dallas Cowboys, Sunday, Oct. 5, 2025, in East Rutherford, N.J. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
The Cowboys had four starters out on their offensive line, but the Jets only managed one sack, which occurred when Dak Prescott gave himself up to keep the clock running in the fourth quarter. This doesn’t even include the 10 penalties for 61 yards the Jets accumulated against the Cowboys.
The Jets were out-coached and at times looked disinterested, especially after Breece Hall‘s second-quarter fumble and after they fell behind 30-3 late in the third quarter. However, Glenn is still in support of Jets defensive coordinator Steve Wilks, but did not comment on whether there could be other possible personnel changes.
“I say this every week, is you earn your keep,” Glenn said. “You earn your keep, so I think everyone is always, we’re always looking at that.
“Like, who gives us the best chance to win? That does not mean that we’re just having wholesale changes week in and week out, but I do expect the players to earn their keep during the week.”
The biggest problem Glenn and the players face is with the Jets fans, who have endured nearly 15 years of misery since the team last played in a postseason game. The Jets haven’t made the playoffs since 2010, which is the longest postseason drought in North American sports.
Jets fans aren’t known for their patience and many of them want Glenn and his staff to make significant changes until they start winning. Primarily through a stretch of games in which turnovers, penalties, and mistakes are the culprits for losses each week.
Glenn himself has stated that they don’t plan to waiver and will continue with their overall mission to build a Jets team that can eventually consistently win, just as he and Dan Campbell did with the Lions.
“You did feel the frustration from the fans, but you still felt the passion from the fans,” Phillips said. “It would be fair if the fans would show this new thing with a little bit of grace. Unless they can look at other organizations and other turnovers when new regimes stepped in and found automatic and immediate success right away.
“It isn’t a lot of first-time head coaches with a brand new roster and a brand new GM, that they end up going to the Super Bowl and winning the thing. Obviously, those are the goals that we have for ourselves every season, and we will still work towards them this year. But I think they should have a little bit of grace. It takes a long time to rebuild a program. I felt like I was part of it in Buffalo, felt like I was part of it in Minnesota and it wasn’t just created overnight. You have to mold and create what the culture is going to be. Get them out of the past, to get them out of their scarred ways, to get them places they’ve been before. We are trying to build a winning culture. That’s what you have to buy into.”
