The season is finally here. And for a change, the Jets get a rare Week 1 win! The caveat, of course, is that the Titans are the Titans. But still, it’s nice to take the wins where you can get them. Who helped their stock, and who hurt it?
Let’s start with the stock ups.
Stock Up
Olu Fashanu
Now, I could mention the whole offensive line here, because I thought they were fantastic today. But I’ll mention Fashanu solely because, to me, he was the biggest X-factor for this team both this year and long-term.
Fashanu has proven to be an average NFL left tackle in his career thus far. But entering Year 3 at just 23 years old, the hope and expectation is that the former first-round pick will develop into an impact LT for years to come.
Today was a good start.
Against the Titans, Fashanu allowed just two pressures, no sacks, and graded out above 74.0 as both a pass blocker and run blocker. The whole offensive line played well, but Fashanu was extremely efficient against a talented Titans front.
This is exactly the type of performance the Jets need to see from him if he’s going to become the long-term answer at left tackle.
Azareye’h Thomas
I’ve recently said I’m kind of shocked about how little discussion Thomas has gotten surrounding the Jets this year. Cornerback is arguably the position where the Jets had the most question marks entering the season. Last year’s third-round pick quietly won the starting job opposite Brandon Stephens during training camp, and his first impression was quite good.
You didn’t hear his name too often, which is a good thing for a corner. But when you did, it was normally because of a positive play.
Thomas led the Jets in run stops with three, making a few terrific tackles on the perimeter, which was a huge weakness for this defense last year.
The competition wasn’t extremely good, but outside of a garbage-time touchdown he gave up, Thomas was excellent for the majority of the game. On a big third down, Ward challenged him down the field, and Thomas played fantastic coverage, using the sideline to his advantage to force an incompletion on Elic Ayomanor.
PFF agreed too with how Thomas performed, as he finished with an 80.3 overall grade and an 81.8 coverage grade.
At only 22 years old, Thomas turning into a sufficient starting boundary corner would be an excellent development for the Jets this year. Once again, the competition wasn’t great, but it’s a good start.
Kenyon Sadiq
Listen, Sadiq didn’t do anything incredible. But considering the injuries and all the negative vibes we heard about him this offseason, the fact that he was even a contributor at all is a positive to me for the rookie tight end in Week 1.
Sadiq only had three targets, but the fact that the Jets utilized more multi-tight end sets, something Frank Reich famously hasn’t done at his last two stops, makes me think there was at least some semblance of a plan for him.
There will be a lot more to watch for with Sadiq, but it’s very clear that he’s extremely athletic on the field. This isn’t just a guy who tested well athletically but doesn’t look the part in pads.
The touchdown wasn’t anything incredible, but it was a shrewd play call that used one of the Jets’ freak athletes to their advantage:
That’s exactly the type of thing I want to see from this offense. Find your good players and find creative ways to get them involved.
Geno Smith
The last person I’ll mention is Geno.
I don’t think it was all positive for Geno. In the first half, I saw some questionable clock management decisions, including a boneheaded checkdown that ended the Jets’ chances of getting points before halftime. He also seemed a bit too slow with his decision-making to start the game.
In the second half, though, I thought he was much, much better.
I don’t think he had to do anything crazy considering the game script, but he was fairly accurate and efficient and was able to push the ball downfield.
He ended with an 84.7 Total QBR, 0.26 EPA/play, and a 12.8 CPOE, all of which were elite numbers.
Now, I think the game script helped him heavily. And I’ve said all offseason that the main way to get competent play from Geno is to protect him.
The Jets showed a glimpse of what he can do when they do.
Stock Down
Now that we got the good out of the way, let’s get to the bad.
Fortunately, there wasn’t much of it.
Mason Taylor
Let’s just say this was a brutal game for Taylor.
And to be honest, he’s extremely fortunate it wasn’t worse.
Taylor was targeted three times and had an inexcusable drop that arguably could have been a fumble. It happened in a spot on the field where it could have been completely game-changing.
The other two targets resulted in catches, but one was a play that was doomed from the start, a tight end screen that went for negative yards and ultimately cost the Jets points.
I can’t hate on him too much for making that catch. That was more on Geno. But if you wanted to see some progress from the second-year tight end, this wasn’t a good start.
Arian Smith
Sticking with the theme of 2025 draft picks, my other big loser of the game was Arian Smith.
Again, I’ve long criticized the Smith pick. I don’t want to blame him for getting overdrafted. It was a boneheaded selection at the time.
But for a guy entering his second season, one where I thought he was lucky to make the roster in the first place, you cannot drop a routine catch on your only offensive snap of the game.
To me, it’s very clear where Smith will need to shift his focus if he wants to last in this league: special teams.
With his straight-line speed, he very much could end up being a positive contributor in that facet of the game.
We’ll see.
Overall
Overall, though, there were more highs than lows.
The Jets haven’t been over .500 in nearly two years. Let’s take the wins where we can get them.
The Titans might be really bad this year, but to be honest I don’t care. I’ll take it.