A month of football has passed and TWO TRUTHS hurt. Why can’t the New York Giants have nice things? Is the New York Jets defense truly bad?
Prepare for the intense sports debate that only sibling rivalry can conjure. Seesaw Sports, where Dan Salem and Todd Salem throw down on the NFL, MLB, NBA and more. Only on BuzzChomp. Two brothers from New York yell, scream and debate sports.
Well, well, well, one of our New York teams managed a victory and the other scored 20 points again. But this is the New York football hour, and both the New York Giants and Jets have reason to cry. Entering NFL week 5 we find ourselves at an impasse, faced with the truth that none of us want to accept.
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The Jets defense is unimaginably bad, while the Giants just can’t seem to hold onto anything good for much longer than a quarter of play. Literally everyone is asking, outsiders are laughing or averting their eyes, but someone must step up to the podium and fire back. Tough questions require hard answers.
New York Giants and Jets: NFL Week 5
1. Why Can’t the New York Giants Have Nice Things?
Todd Salem: Jaxson Dart made his long-awaited (but it’d actually been only three weeks) season debut on Sunday. I would deem his performance solid and inspiring. He showed off poise, superb athleticism, and command. His statistics were poor, but the feel of his performance was really good. It was overall a completely positive success for Dart in game one.
The stats were underwhelming for a couple reasons. First, the Giants went heavy on the run, including Dart himself finishing with 10 carries. Second, the offense was given multiple short fields thanks to long interception returns from the defense. Those are both good reasons to have limited passing numbers.
Then, there were also some growing pains, as is to be expected. Dart tucked and ran, either by design or because he got ansty, way more than you’d want in a normal game. He also got sacked a whopping five times and didn’t make any plays deep down the field. The sacks we are used to from Russell Wilson; the deep plays were Wilson’s lone strength at this point in his career, so Dart has major catching up to do there.
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But all this is burying the lede. The Giants should be feeling great after an upset victory. And yet, star receiver Malik Nabers is out for the year after tearing his ACL in the win. There is no way to sugar coat this or find a silver lining. The Giants, who maybe had some sneaking hope of competing once Dart was installed, are finished for this season. More importantly, Dart’s development just took a major hit. There are no other weapons on this team who opponents fear or game plan against. It was Nabers and Nabers alone. Now, everything a defense has will be thrown at thwarting Dart and the running game. That is…not good.
We speculated that installing Dart would buy coach Brian Daboll more time before finding himself on the hot seat. Now, I think everything comes down to this: can Daboll turn Dart into a compelling NFL quarterback within an offense that has no weapons? If he does, he has earned his job in future years. If he doesn’t, the org will probably just want to pull the bandaid off and start fresh with someone else.
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Dan Salem: I like what I saw from Jaxson Dart in his rookie debut. He avoided the terrible rookie first game and even stole a victory, but he won’t be able to run like that going forward. Teams will now plan to stop his running, unlike the Chargers who had zero tape to prepare with. On the plus side, New York’s defense stepped up big time and stopped one of the top tier offenses in the AFC (at least through the first 3 weeks). But there’s no denying that Dart’s climb was uphill to begin with, having only one offensive weapon, but now it’s a sheer cliff!
Who exactly can he throw the ball to? The Giants are finding a running game, but that will disappear without a passing threat. Nabers is impossible to replace, but there’s no one on the team to even step up and fill half his shoes. We expected a long and painful season for New York, but it’s easy to see how Dart’s development is now stunted without Nabers. Perhaps this works in Daboll’s favor with regards to keeping his job, but I’m not sure that’s a good thing for the team either.
We must see that Dart is “the guy” before Thanksgiving, or it’s going to be a literal wipe across the entire Giants franchise come 2026. Since Nabers is now an unknown for next season, timetable pending, what’s there to save? Dart himself is now playing for his job, more so than before, and unless the Giants can win with defense, I’m not sure how anyone gets out of this hole. When is a win not a win? When it costs you your best player.
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2. How is Defense what’s Holding the New York Jets back?
Todd Salem: It just doesn’t make sense. Prior to the season, everything marked this Jets club as a defense-first team that would be lucky to scrape consistent offense together week to week. Arguably the team’s three or four best players are all on the defensive side. Aaron Glenn, the new head coach, was a former defensive coordinator; the team’s own defensive coordinator, Steve Wilks, was a former head coach himself and is a long-time coach in this league.
On the other side of the ball, everything was a question mark. Justin Fields was thought to have a limited ceiling and low floor thanks to his passing. Breece Hall was in a position battle to keep his job, at least from the outside looking in; the new offensive coordinator, Tanner Engstrand, was a new guy without much history. There were questions everywhere.
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And through four weeks, the Jets defense has been a disaster, and the offense has been downright good. What gives? The Jets only lost to Miami this past week because of turnovers and penalties: the bugaboos of either poorly coached teams or randomness. We don’t know which this team is yet.
The luck of fumble recoveries is historically random, but how about a supposed elite defense forcing a turnover of its own? New York managed zero QB hits, let alone sacks, in Week 4. It’s been a constant theme for a team with multiple upper-echelon defensive linemen.
It certainly takes time for new coaching regimes to install their ‘stuff’, but this is a veteran defense, led by veteran coaches. When is it time to panic that something is not right here?
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Dan Salem: Will the real New York Jets defense please stand up? It is unreal that this unit has zero turnovers through four games. It’s equally unreal how many penalties the Jets are getting, after playing such a clean game in week one. I can equate fumbles to aggressiveness, but there’s a limit when it has now cost you multiple wins. Aaron Glenn was heard screaming at his team, because they have been shooting themselves in the foot. New York let three potential wins slip through their fingers.
Now to be real, the Jets don’t have a great offense either. The garbage time numbers against Tampa Bay cloud the truth, because only against bad defenses in Pittsburgh and Miami has this unit performed halfway decent… but not well enough to win!
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I’m not sure if it’s scary or a glimmer of hope, because even a defense that is slightly below league average would be a huge improvement for the Jets and likely would have meant 3 wins on their schedule thus far. Can the New York defense become slightly worse than league average? The Jets will be playing plenty of more bad defenses for their offense to feast on, so one can envision this team improving. But these are the Jets, so hope is not warranted. We must see it before we can even begin to believe it’s a possibility, let alone a reality. Show me a league average defense versus the Cowboys and get a win against another bad defense, then we can talk.
Meet our Sports Writers:
Dan Salem is Lead Editor and Co-owner of BuzzChomp. He’s an award winning Actor, Director and Producer. Visit M Square Productions for his film work, or get lost in his old-school comedy on Pillow Talk TV. You can follow him on X, TikTok and Instagram. His latest film ‘Alone’ is now on Amazon.
Todd Salem is a Staff Writer and Contributing Editor at BuzzChomp. He’s also a champion of fantasy football and fantasy baseball, dominating leagues for over two decades. Comment below on his unfiltered opinions.
New York Giants and Jets Burning Questions – This Is The End
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