The Jets are mostly to blame for Thursday Night Football’s loss to the Patriots
The New York Jets started the season with seven straight losses before going on a rampage at Ohio State. New York defeated the Cincinnati Bengals and Cleveland Browns, winning back-to-back games for the first time since September 2024. But the Jets’ hot streak ended Thursday Night Football in the 11th week.
The New England Patriots are good again. After missing the playoffs for three seasons, New England finally bounced back, rewarding its long-suffering fan base with the best record in the NFL under first-year head coach Mike Vrabel.
The story is quite different in New York. Head Coach of Beginners Aaron Glenn is off to a rocky start and the Jets are poised to miss the playoffs for the 15th straight season.
On Thursday, New York visited Foxborough for a divisional matchup against the Patriots. No one thought the Jets would win and they lived up to those expectations with a 27-14 loss. So now it’s time to play the blame game.
Aaron Glenn
Glenn ran a strange game on Thursday night. The Jets seemed to have something going early. New York got the ball first and scored on a 14-play, 72-yard drive. It was the team’s first touchdown since Week 16 of the 2024 season.
Justin Fields shredded New England’s defense, rushing the ball five times for 28 yards and a score on the game’s first drive. The Patriots seemed uninterested in stopping Fields with any kind of defensive adjustment, so Glenn shut him down for them.
Fields ran just five more times after the first drive, essentially throwing away the only successful facet of New York’s offense. After the game, Glenn made that clear stopping Fields was his choice.
“We don’t want to get into the habit of running our quarterback because that puts him in danger,” Glenn explained.
Unfortunately, the quarterback can’t handle the passing offense. The Jets are last in the league, averaging 139.9 passing yards per game. And, predictably, keeping Fields in the pocket stopped the offense. But at least he wasn’t in danger.
Thursday night’s game marked the seventh time the Jets have been outscored and the eighth time they have lost a turnover battle in 10 games this season. New York committed seven costly penalties against the Patriots, scuttling any hopes of pulling off the upset.
Despite a 2-8 record, the team doesn’t seem to have given up on Glenn. But it’s clear the fans are watching the first-time coach figure it out on the fly. And mistakes with personnel, pace and game management hurt the Jets.
Justin Fields
Glenn tried to protect Fields after New York’s 27-14 loss, saying “We’ve got to have some guys play for him.” While that’s true, the fifth-year quarterback clearly deserves some of the blame.
Fields was plagued by a coaching staff that made him one-dimensional and a VR corps that was Garrett Wilson is missing. But his struggles as a passer were on full display Thursday night. And they were even more obvious when compared to Patriots KB Drake Maye.
Fields was 15/26 for 116 yards and a touchdown against New England. It’s just the fifth time he’s thrown for more than 54 yards in nine starts. Fields was inaccurate with numerous passes, missing receivers on the rare occasions he was open. He made a rookie mistake with an intentional grounding penalty, stopping a drive in the third quarter when New York trailed by just seven. And then there was that brutal tampering.
Justin Fields FUMBLES and the Patriots recover 😤
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) November 14, 2025
what is that
Fields couldn’t handle a low snap midway through the fourth quarter, comically flailing and losing the ball deep in Jets territory. New York’s defense was able to hold the Patriots to a field goal. But the score was reversed, giving New England a 27-14 lead with less than seven minutes remaining.
Fields has most fumbles in the NFL since entering the league in 2021. It honestly doesn’t seem possible considering he didn’t even play in 18 of his first 68 games. But he fumbled for the 48th time Thursday, the most in football in five years.
It’s not Fields’ fault that the coaching staff decided to keep him in the pocket, taking away his only upside as a QB. But he bears the blame for his complete inability to sustain the passing game.
A pass catcher not named John Metchie
Fields was undoubtedly inaccurate in Thursday night’s loss. But the Jets’ receiving corps of Adonai Mitchell, Arian Smith, Isaiah Williams, John Metchie and Allen Lazard did him no favors.
Mitchell in particular had a brutal game. Dog after dog rattled from his hands as the drops piled up.
TRENDS: New #Jets wide receiver AD Mitchell is having a historically bad game tonight.
Mitchell already has three downs in just his first game in New York…
Pathetic from a #NFL receiver 😳😳😳
pic.twitter.com/fZUKIMNHKf— MLFootball (@MLFootball) November 14, 2025
The Jets landed Mitchell in the Sauce Gardner trade with the Indianapolis Colts. The 2024 second-round pick had a chance to showcase his skills while Wilson was sidelined with an injury. But he went down in his Jets debut.
Downs were a major problem for New York. Which is not ideal given Fields’ inaccuracy.
One of the few times Fields threw a perfect pass, backup tight end Jeremy Ruckert couldn’t handle it. An incompletion followed on 4th and 4 with two minutes left and the Jets trailing by 13.
A return with this group was unlikely. But what was Ruckert even doing there to begin with? What happened to rookie second rounder Mason Taylor? Why did Ruckert get three of his five targets on the Jets’ final drive?
Does any of it really matter? No.
The Jets are 2-8 and are waiting for a late-season run to secure a mid-draft pick. The Patriots won their eighth straight game, improving to an NFL-best 9-2 on the season. Hello darkness, my old friend…
2025-11-14 10:29:00
