The offense of the New York Jets has not been up to snuff of late. That much is clear. The Jets have gone two games in a row without scoring a touchdown, scoring nine total points in their two most recent losses to the Jaguars and Seahawks, losses that have knocked the Jets out of postseason contention and extended their streak to 12 consecutive seasons without a trip to the playoffs.
A lot of the heat for the offensive woes has gone in the direction of quarterbacks Zach Wilson and Mike White and deservedly so. A lot of heat has also gone in the direction of offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur, also deservedly so as the Jets also seemed to get away from the running game, including completely abandoning it during the second half in Seattle.
The Jets have the 25th-ranked offense in DVOA, per Football Outsiders, including the No. 21 rushing offense and the No. 25 passing offense.
The Jets rushed for just 75 yards against the Seahawks and totaled just 279 yards of offense. It was the second week in a row the Jets had less than 300 yards of offense (227 against Jacksonville).
Despite all the offensive woes over the past few weeks, Saleh still has full confidence in LaFleur. He likens the situation to his own when he was Kyle Shanahan’s defensive coordinator in San Francisco.
Yeah, I’ve been in LaFleur’s shoes. I told you guys the story. In 2018, second year as a coordinator on defense, and it would’ve been very easy for Kyle (Shanahan) to fire me — very easy just to say, ‘You know what, we went 4-12. You’re the scapegoat. Get the heck out of the building,’ but to his credit, he sat down. He went over the weeks following the season and committed to me, and the rest is history. You got to have the discipline to be able to go back and make sure you’re telling the truth about what’s happening in the building and not coming away with knee-jerk reactions that could derail what could be a pretty damn good football coach or a good player for that matter.
Saleh also believes he needs to continue that development with quarterback Zach Wilson, as speculation begins as to whether Wilson will still be with the team in 2023.
That’s where Zach comes into play, to sit down and make sure that we’re doing everything we can and studying everything we can to make sure that we keep these young people who we’ve invested two years in, make sure we’re keeping them on track of development and making sure that we’re staying committed to the process that we set out to commit to back two years ago.
Will the Jets make changes along the coaching staff as Saleh and general manager Joe Douglas enter what could be a pivotal 2023? That remains to be seen, but Saleh sure seems to want to keep the train moving with LaFleur calling the shots on offense.
