00:00All right, Jets season coming fast and furious, preseason game number one as well.
00:05They have an off day today, and then, of course, it feels like everybody's playing tomorrow night.
00:09Andy Vasquez from NJ.com has the very latest on the Jets, what we can expect potentially as the season begins.
00:16Andy, thank you so much for spending a few minutes with me here on the show.
00:19Really appreciate it.
00:20Let's dive right in.
00:21Jets are, I think it's fair to say, in like a transitional type period.
00:26Maybe they're better than people expect.
00:27They could end up being worse.
00:28We really don't know.
00:30But that's kind of the deal going into the season.
00:33They added a few players, most notably in Justin Fields, and said goodbye to a lot of players that could end up being in the Hall of Fame one day as well.
00:40Tell me what I missed.
00:42No, I think you've got it right.
00:44The talent level is definitely not as good as it was a year ago.
00:49But I do think they're better coached.
00:52They're better organized.
00:53Aaron Glenn is a guy who has a long career of experience, and that gives him credibility with the players, and he was a good player.
01:01So I think, you know, a lot of the guys have bought in.
01:04And we've seen this thing where they've kind of been criticizing the previous coaching staff, and I don't think it's really intentional.
01:10It's just they've been talking about accountability and clear communication and the expectations that Glenn has set.
01:16And I think that does give them a higher ceiling because, as we saw last year, talent does not equal wins in this league necessarily.
01:24No, definitely does not, especially when the most talented player you have on your team is an older player.
01:29And until the second half of the season got underway, it didn't seem like Aaron Rodgers had anything left to me, although he did play well in Miami.
01:36I saw that game.
01:36I was there at that.
01:37Okay, so Aaron Glenn says that a lot of the starters are going to play on Saturday night.
01:45And, look, this is something that is unusual in this day and age of the NFL just simply because a lot of coaches are afraid of having their players hurt.
01:53And generally, with this new format going from four preseason games to three, we usually just see everybody in game number two.
02:00Why do you think Glenn is doing this?
02:01Is there anything behind this?
02:04Well, I think it just goes back to what he's been doing throughout training camp, which is tackling.
02:09I've seen more tackling in the last two weeks than I've seen in my first nine training camps covering the Jets.
02:14So, as Sauce Gardner said yesterday, if that's the strategy and practice, why would he not have us out there tackling during the games?
02:23They're already kind of embracing this injury risk that comes with this, and they have been banged up.
02:29Obviously, the calculus changes a lot if you suffer a significant or season-ending injury in a setting like tomorrow night in Green Bay.
02:37But it's pretty consistent with what he's doing, and I think it's kind of about setting his tone.
02:42And also, you know, there's been this belief that you can get ready for the season without tackling properly.
02:48And I know watching the Jets try to tackle early in the season, it hasn't been, you know, reality.
02:54And I think, you know, Aaron Glenn believes they have to, you know, tackle multiple times before they get to the season if they're going to be at their best to start the season.
03:04Now, I think that, look, it's a quarterback-driven league, Andy, and there's no question that this is where the focus is going to be.
03:11And this is never going away in the National Football League.
03:14So, you know, Justin Fields is the quarterback.
03:17We had that scare real quick last week that maybe there was an injury.
03:20It didn't look to be that serious, and that's good news for him.
03:24Andy, you know, a very different player we saw in Pittsburgh than we saw in Chicago.
03:29I'm not even sure if it was for the better in Pittsburgh because we really didn't get to see him open up the offense all that much.
03:34I wonder if your opinion is that we see the player that we saw in Chicago who was running around trying to make plays, not all that successful at times,
03:42or the player that they scaled back the offense to when he went in Pittsburgh last year.
03:47Is it somewhere one way or the other or maybe in the middle?
03:50I think in between is the idea to have that possibility of him bolting.
03:56And you're talking about a guy who is one of the best running quarterbacks of all time in the same year that Lamar Jackson set the season record for rushing yards by a quarterback.
04:05Fields was like 60 yards short of it.
04:07So he can run like it's unbelievable what he can do as a ball carrier, but you can't completely take that away from him and have him run such a restricted offense.
04:19So I think you want to see something in between while not having him revert back to what he was in Chicago, which was struggling to find the right reads.
04:27And that's going to be, first of all, hard to see in training camp and also a complicated thing because you're going to have to get defenses to bite on you making these simple short throws.
04:38And then also having that threat of bolting the pocket or having designed runs.
04:44That's where I think you'll see a difference is there'll be a lot more designed runs for him where they're going to use the run game as a whole and his running as a big weapon.
04:54Now, the Jets have been up against it.
04:56I think everybody knows by now they haven't made the playoffs in over a decade.
05:00It's been almost, I believe, 14 seasons.
05:03That's the longest, by the way, in all professional sports, NFL, Major League Baseball, NBA, and NHL.
05:08I'm not going to harp on that.
05:09What I'm going to harp on is the fact that you're front and center with the division.
05:14And so if the Jets aren't in it, hypothetically, and let's say they are around the projections, which is, let's say, five wins, six wins, seven wins, somewhere along that.
05:22Are you still a believer that it is Buffalo's division to win at the top?
05:26And then what I'm seeing, at least this offseason, Andy, is I'm seeing a lot of push for New England to go ahead of Miami.
05:33I'm not really totally on board with that.
05:35I'm not sure why that is happening.
05:36Do you sort of see it that way as we get ready for the beginning of the preseason for both the Bills, the Patriots, and the Jets?
05:45I think it's, I definitely agree with Buffalo at the top of the division.
05:49I don't think that's a real hard one.
05:51And then from there, I do think Miami is going to take a step back when you look at all the turmoil they've had, some of the talent they've lost.
05:59It's such a high-pressure year with the coach on the hot seat.
06:04I just think all of that is not going to be a good combination.
06:07I'm not, I mean, I'm a big believer in Vrabel, but I think it's still, like, too early for that to turn around.
06:15And I think the Jets have better talent when you look at what they have on defense.
06:20Definitely some question marks on offense, but when you look at the overall talent and you have a guy who knows the Jets' situation in Aaron Glenn, I think that's going to help them.
06:30And I would put the Jets, you know, it's a distant second, but I think them, Miami, New England would be right there.
06:36And of those three teams, I think the Jets have the best chance to get to, like, nine wins unexpectedly more than, like, Miami being the clear number two in the division.
06:44Yeah, I think it could be real bunched up.
06:47That sounds fair.
06:48Nine, eight, seven wins for all of those three teams and Buffalo at the top.
06:51All right, fascinating season coming ahead.
06:53Andy, thanks so much for spending the time here on the show, and we'll check back in as the preseason gets underway.
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