It's the Hope That Kills You, But the Hope Will Never Die
By Paul Macfarlane ·
The NFL season starts in 2 weeks. Football is my favorite sport, and the NFL is the league I follow the most religiously. Yet, in a twist of cruel irony, the New York Jets are my favorite team.
My first year as a Jets fan was Geno Smith's rookie year. The first game was a closely contested (but not well played) slop-fest between the Jets and the Josh Freeman-led Buccaneers. The Jets won in the final seconds thanks to a Jet-like penalty by the Bucs' Lavonte David putting the Jets into field goal range. A much younger Nick Folk nailed a 48-yarder to put the Jets ahead 18-17 and win the game. The Jets finished that season 8-8, which seemed bad at the time. However, that 8-8 season was their second-best season between 2013 and 2025.
Each season has brought more suffering. 2014 (4-12) was so forgettable I'm skipping it. 2015 had a magical second-half run. An early highlight of that run was an overtime victory vs the Giants at MetLife, a game I attended myself. I have some fond memories of a drunk Giants fan calling me the F-slur, and of my cousins — yes, my actual cousins, Giants fans who coincidentally were sitting in the seats right in front of me — not recognizing me and telling me to go back to Staten Island (I'm from upstate NY). The peak of the excitement was another overtime victory at MetLife in Week 16 vs the hated Patriots, a team we have only beaten once since then. The Jets just needed to win the next week and they were guaranteed a playoff spot! While the peak was high, so was the valley. The next week the Jets lost in Buffalo against former Jets coach Rex Ryan's 8-8 Buffalo Bills. The game was a slopfest and the Fitzmagic ran out. The Jets lost 17-22. The worst part: despite playing terribly and not really deserving to win the game, they had a chance at the end. Fitzpatrick, who had played terribly, threw a prayer to Kenbrell Thompkins, but the pass was dropped and/or broken up. I'm not afraid to admit that I cried after that. What I didn't know then was that this was the closest the Jets would get to making the playoffs.
Since 2015, the Jets seasons have looked like this:
2016: 5-11
We tried to run back the Ryan Fitzpatrick experience. That didn't work.
2017: 5-11
I know McCown allegedly had a decent statistical season, but all I remember is us getting blown out in Oakland in Week 2 as I watched from my college dorm room.
2018: 4-12
Sam's rookie year. I remember his first pass being a pick six, I remember them blowing out the Lions anyways, and I remember the team otherwise being awful.
2019: 7-9
A tale of two halves. The low point: ESPN, in line with the media hatred of the Jets despite their ineptitude, aired audio of Sam Darnold claiming he was seeing ghosts during Monday Night Football vs the Patriots. Sam also got mono. I laughed about it, and as karmic payment, also got mono 2 months later. The Jets actually salvaged the season a bit and finished 7-9. The third-best winning percentage of a Jets team during my fandom.
2020: 2-14
Despite the late-season push, Joe Douglas, the GM who inexplicably took over AFTER the 2019 draft and Adam Gase hire, decided to tear down the team as part of a blatant tanking effort to get Trevor Lawrence. It was a lost year. The lowlight probably was a last-second loss to the Raiders where defensive coordinator and obsessive blitzer Gregg Williams brought an all-out blitz, which led to Derek Carr connecting with the still-incarcerated Henry Ruggs III. Sam had no chance of success with this team, but was able to win 2 late games vs legit playoff teams in the Rams and Browns. That was enough for the tanking Jets to lose even by winning and get the 2nd overall pick, not the first. Douglas responded with what the kids nowadays call "copium" and began to obsess over a tiny Mormon kid from BYU, Zach Wilson. The Jets moving on from Sam Darnold was a move that has aged like already-cooked baked ziti.
2021: 4-13
Tough-talking Rob Saleh's first season. The roster was still awful. Zach Wilson had one nice game against the Titans in an otherwise dreadful season. He also got hurt. Mike White — the quarterback, not the writer of White Lotus — had one nice game against the Bengals, then got hurt on a weird Thursday night game vs the Colts where Josh Johnson — the quarterback, not the comedian and Daily Show contributor — put up some good numbers in a loss. In the second-to-last game of the season, the Jets lost to Tom Brady and the Bucs by blowing a double-digit lead once Antonio Brown stormed off the field without a shirt on.
2022: 7-10
This in some ways was the most devastating season of my fandom. The season started off with promise. Zach missed the first 3 games after he tried to juke someone out in the preseason. The Jets went 1-2 under the backup Joe Flacco, but the one win was an outright miracle from an onside kick. When Wilson returned, the Jets won 4 games in a row to get to 5-2. They did, however, suffer devastating injuries to young standouts RB Breece Hall and OL Alijah Vera-Tucker in their victory in Denver. They had a devastating loss to the Patriots, in large part due to a phantom roughing the passer call on John Franklin-Myers that nullified a Mac Jones pick six, but the Jets bounced back with one of their biggest victories of my fandom: a 20-17 victory over the hated Bills and Josh Allen.
The Jets somehow turned that victory and an extra week of rest into 0 momentum, because the next week they lost 3-10 to the Patriots in Foxborough in the sloppiest of slopfests on a punt return. My most vivid memory of that game is the PA announcer playing Rihanna's We Found Love immediately after, which ruined the otherwise banger of a song for me. Zach Wilson was awful, and was benched the next week for Mike White. White took advantage of a terrible Bears team and blew them out to bring the Jets to 7-4. We still looked like a playoff team.
What followed, however, was a series of devastating losses. A loss on the road vs the luckiest 13+ win team (well, up until the 2025 Broncos) in history, the 2022 Vikings. The Jets settled for 5 field goals instead of getting more touchdowns, and still had a chance at the end. Braxton Berrios, an otherwise feel-good story for the Jets, dropped what would have been the game-winning touchdown pass. A week later, the Jets lost a close game to the Bills, in large part due to an uncharacteristic fumble by Michael Carter. Mike White also got hurt, so we were back to Zach Wilson. The following week, I left my future wife's family puja early to watch the Jets give up a late touchdown to Detroit and then squander a chance at kicking the game-tying field goal as time expired. The next week, on my cousin and best man Bailey's birthday, a day where our favorite teams tend to be dreadful, we watched the Jets get their butts kicked 3-19 in a game that was not as close as the score. That was only a Thursday night game, but it seemed as though the Jets' playoff hopes were over. Then, to really hammer home the phrase "it's the hope that kills you," all the teams the Jets needed to lose proceeded to lose that weekend, putting the Jets in the driver's seat to make the playoffs if they could win out. The Jets had a game vs Geno Smith's Seattle Seahawks. Mike White toughed it out through his injury but couldn't get the job done. The Jets lost and their season was over.
2023: 7-10
The Jets decided they needed competent quarterback play, and Aaron Rodgers was available. While Aaron had led the league in arrogance, ayahuasca use, and appearances on Pat McAfee over the years, I was willing to tolerate the arrogance in exchange for decent QB play. With the Jets defense, that is really all they needed. But it's the hope that kills you. On September 11th, Rodgers came out of the tunnel with an American flag to the most electric Jets crowd in my lifetime. The electricity died down quickly, though. Rodgers tore his Achilles 4 plays into the season. The Jets still somehow won that game thanks to an insane Garrett Wilson catch and a walk-off punt return. The Jets had a few more miraculous wins and competitive games, featuring a close Sunday night game vs the Chiefs (who got as many favorable calls as there were Taylor Swift cutaways), an inexplicable interception thrown by Jalen Hurts, and a late-game blunder by the Giants that bailed out Zach Wilson. But after that, the wheels came off and the Jets ended the season a disappointing 7-10. The lowlight? I went in person to the Black Friday game. I sat in the 400 level by the endzone, and I got a first-class view of Tim Boyle's fail mary.
2024: 5-12
Rodgers was back and healed. It was do or die for Saleh, Rodgers, and Douglas. Spoiler alert, they died (not literally). The Jets started off looking underwhelming against the San Francisco 49ers and dropped their first game, but then eked out a win vs the hapless Titans and Will Levis, and blew out a historically bad Patriots team for their only victory vs the Pats since 2015. They looked like they might be competent. But it is the hope that kills you. They lost a slopfest vs the Broncos due to missed kicks, some botched goal-line execution, and botched end-of-game execution by Rodgers. 2-2. Next, they lost a close one to the Vikings in London thanks to an early pick six thrown to a linebacker by Rodgers and a late pick on a potential game-winning drive thrown by Rodgers (both of which he blamed other people for). Saleh was fired.
The Jets responded by playing alright vs the Bills the next week, but lost a competitive game in part due to missed kicks, in part due to BS penalties, and in part due to Rodgers making bad throws and then yelling at his receivers. To placate Rodgers, the Jets traded for his buddy and All-Pro receiver Davante Adams, who actually was great as a Jet. The Jets started the next game against the Steelers off pretty well, but the game turned on a very impressive pick on a good throw by Rodgers at the end of the 1st half. The game escalated after that into a blowout, including a play where Garrett Wilson dropped a pass that turned into a pick six. Rodgers would have actually been justified in yelling at Wilson, but Wilson was hit so hard in the head afterwards I think even Rodgers felt bad and let it pass. In case you thought the excruciating losses were over, you are wrong. The next week the Jets lost to the Pats due to missed kicks, extra points, and not-so-great late-game execution by Rodgers. That made arguably three games — Broncos, Bills, Pats — the Jets lost to terrible kicking alone in the first half of the season. They were 2-6.
The Jets managed to salvage a Thursday night win over the Texans on Halloween, which saved Malachi Corley from the infamy of having his drop of the ball just before crossing the goal line be his lasting legacy. Instead, his legacy is that he was just a normal bust of a 3rd round pick from the Jets, one of many mid-round picks that Joe Douglas missed on. The Jets were 3-6 and had an easy upcoming schedule. In theory the season wasn't over. But, in Jet-like fashion, they lost in underwhelming fashion in Arizona the next week to drop to 3-7, had an excruciating last-second loss to Anthony Richardson's Colts due to more late-game struggles for Rodgers and dropped to 3-8. They lost yet another heartbreaker to Geno Smith and the Seahawks (more late-game struggles for Rodgers and dumb penalties) to drop to 3-9. They lost in overtime to Miami the next week, a game I must have blacked out of my memory because I remember nothing of it, and dropped to 3-10. They got a meaningless victory over Mac Jones and Jacksonville, who once again succeeded in out-tanking the Jets. They lost one final close one to the Rams to drop to 4-11 and were embarrassingly blown out by Buffalo. And then, because they are the Jets and can't even lose right, they got one last meaningless victory over the Dolphins (though I don't think in this case it really hurt their draft position at all). Aaron Rodgers' time in New York was done.
2025: 3-14
I'm so exhausted after writing the 2024 season I'll keep this short. New coach: Aaron Glenn, sporting Frederick Douglass-like facial hair. New quarterback: Justin Fields. Incredible incompetency. The highlights in the 3-14 season were a close loss in Week 1 to the Steelers where I foolishly thought our offense looked good, and a late comeback vs the historically bad Bengals defense to get the Jets their first win in 8 games. Glenn looked lost as a coach, and Fields didn't even last half the season as a starter. The highlight of the season? Nick Folk. Yes, that same Nick Folk from 2013. He was by far the Jets' most consistent player, and nailed 28 of 29 field goals (kind of sad how he only got to kick 29 of them). The Jets at least were bad enough for the new GM Mougey to decide to trade away our top players Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams for a treasure chest of picks (not that this guarantees we will use the picks well). Oh also, the Jets managed to go the entire season without an interception. An impressive feat.
2026
We are now in 2026. In spite of everything you read above, I still have a glimmer of hope. We have a last-place schedule. The Jets brought back the now over-the-hill Geno Smith for a reunion — my fandom, apparently, is a flat circle. Breece Hall and Garrett Wilson remain. Mitchell, a throw-in on the Sauce Gardner trade, looks like he could be a real WR. Kenyon Sadiq, picked with one of the 1st rounders the Colts gave up in the aforementioned trade, may be the rare 1st round TE to pan out. The O-line should be good, after years of spending high draft picks on it. The D-line has been revamped, including the 2nd overall pick David Bailey. Another member of that 2013 team, the ageless wonder Demario Davis, leads the linebacker group, and our secondary... well, hopefully they can get an interception this year. As for Glenn, I'm willing to chalk his struggles up to his first year — and he's now calling the defense himself, something he did a good job with in Detroit.
What's funny is I started this post with the idea of writing about the hope for the upcoming season. I had only intended a small prelude of my Jets fan history. However, going through the history was actually kind of therapeutic. I have a small amount of hope. While the hope may kill you, your hope may never die.
The actual season preview is coming next week.