New York Jets

New York Jets quarterback Sam Darnold isn't paying attention to calls for the team to draft Clemson's Trevor Lawrence next spring, but he is aware of them. 

Darnold told reporters Thursday he's seen social media chatter about the possibility Lawrence could land in New York, though his focus remains on his next opponent. 

With the Jets sitting at 0-6, it makes sense for some fans to turn their attention toward tanking or rebuilding. Either way, 2018's No. 3 overall pick is likely running out of time to establish himself as a franchise passer. 

Darnold is 11-19 as the Jets' starter and has a career completion percentage of 59.8 with 39 touchdowns and 32 interceptions. 

It doesn't help that the general manager who drafted him, Mike Maccagnan, was fired in May 2019. 

The decision to part with Maccagnan came only months after he hired head coach Adam Gase and two months after he signed running back Le'Veon Bell to a four-year, $52.5 million deal. 

New York cut Bell ahead of Week 6 this year, while Connor Hughes of The Athletic reported the front office will reevaluate Gase's position after the season.

Despite the turnover, Darnold's future is still mostly up to him. 

If the quarterback—who has yet to complete two full seasons' worth of NFL games—can continue to develop and excel, he could hang on to his role. If not, that doesn't necessarily mean Lawrence is coming to take his job. 

It's still too early to guess which NFL prospect will be the No. 1 pick, and which team will land it, though Lawrence has as good a chance as any player. 

The 2018 national champion finished seventh in Heisman Trophy voting last year and has already compiled 81 touchdowns on 13 interceptions through two-plus seasons as the quarterback at Clemson. 

With New York boasting the NFL's third-worst offense (276.7 yards per game) and the 20th-ranked defense (378.8 yards allowed per game), it'll take much more than a switch at QB for the Jets to become a contender in the AFC East. 

The New York Jets are likely looking at trade possibilities after their 0-6 start to the season, but defensive tackle Quinnen Williams reportedly has not yet been the subject of deep discussions.

"To this point, no one has called the Jets about Williams with anything serious," The Athletic's Connor Hughes reported.

Hughes added the Jets could potentially land a second-round pick in a trade and general manager Joe Douglas "probably" wouldn't turn that down.

Williams was the No. 3 overall pick in the 2019 draft but had a slow start to his career, totaling 2.5 sacks and 28 tackles in 13 games (nine starts).

He has made a bigger impact so far in 2020 with 24 tackles in six games, adding two sacks and a forced fumble.

The 22-year-old could be a building block on the defensive line, especially considering he is under team control through at least 2022 with a team option for 2023. With few other sure things on the roster, the Jets should be in no rush to deal him away.

On the other hand, the team is clearly far from contending after a brutal start to 2020.

Not only is New York the only winless team left in the NFL, the squad has been outscored by 110 points so far this season, nearly double the scoring deficit of anyone else in the league (Jacksonville Jaguars are second-worst at minus-56).

The Jets traded Leonard Williams last season—another former top-10 draft pick on the defensive line—and could use a similar strategy ahead of the Nov. 3 trade deadline.

Despite the New York Jets' struggles, head coach Adam Gase reportedly may not be in imminent danger of losing his job.

According to ESPN's Dan Graziano and Jeremy Fowler, someone with knowledge of the relationship between Gase and the Jets said the head coach's job status is not considered a "week-to-week thing" within the organization.

The Jets have the worst record in the NFL at 0-6 and have shown no signs of getting on track, but Graziano and Fowler noted that it doesn't necessarily mean the Jets are looking to make an in-season coaching change.

One league executive suggested to Graziano and Fowler that keeping Gase as the head coach for the remainder of the 2020 season may be the best move for the Jets since it would conceivably allow the team to continue losing and positioning itself to take Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence in the 2021 NFL draft.

The exec also pointed out that defensive coordinator Gregg Williams would be the top option to serve as interim head coach, which may not be a popular choice within the coaching staff.

When Williams was asked about the Jets' defensive struggles last week, he seemed to suggest much of the blame landed at the feet of the offense, saying: "It's not a very good number—and a lot of it's not all defensively. It's points on the board and we've got to do a good job of that, and how you do that is make them kick more field goals, got to do a better job in field-position-type things. As you see, the scoring is up in the league, but it still makes me sick."

When asked to clarify what he meant when saying "it's not all defensively," Williams said, "You'd have to figure it out."

Gase, who calls the offensive plays, didn't take kindly to Williams' comments, as he said, "Everyone needs to shut up and play," when asked to address the situation during a CBS production meeting, per Al Iannazzone of Newsday.

With quarterback Sam Darnold out because of a shoulder injury and veteran Joe Flacco getting the start, the Jets were shut out by the Miami Dolphins on Sunday 24-0.

New York is 30th in the NFL in total offense with 276.7 yards per game and last in scoring with a mere 12.5 points per contest.

The Jets have performed poorly defensively as well, ranking 29th in the NFL with 30.8 points allowed per game.

Gase owns a 7-15 record in parts of two seasons as the Jets' head coach, so it is difficult to imagine he'll retain his job in 2021, but a midseason firing like the Houston Texans did with Bill O'Brien or the Atlanta Falcons did with Dan Quinn may not be in the cards.

The fire sale might be underway in the Big Apple as the New York Jets suffered their sixth defeat of the season.

Following the Jets' 24-0 loss to the Miami Dolphins, the Tampa Bay Times' Rick Stroud reported they traded veteran defensive tackle Steve McLendon and a 2023 seventh-round pick to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for a 2022 sixth-rounder.

SNY's Ralph Vacchiano provided the financial particulars:

McLendon has been a mainstay on New York's line in recent seasons. He made 44 starts between 2017 and 2019 and appeared in the team's first six games this season. The 34-year-old had 35 tackles and 2.5 sacks in 2019.

Given both his age and impending free agency in 2021, McLendon didn't have a ton of value for a team that might finish with the NFL's worst record. Even for what's a pretty minimal return, this trade makes sense for the Jets.

Sending him to a Super Bowl contender is almost an act of mercy as well.

McLendon is the second veteran out the door this week after the Jets released Le'Veon Bell. The situations aren't direct parallels since McLendon didn't appear to have friction with head coach Adam Gase. Still, you have to wonder whether this will be the last of New York's business before the Nov. 3 trade deadline passes.

With McLendon joining their ranks, the Buccaneers strengthen what was already an elite defense. They sat second in defensive efficiency, per Football Outsiders, and held the Green Bay Packers to 201 total yards in a 38-10 win Sunday.

Things are not going well this season for the New York Jets, and veteran running back Frank Gore was visibly frustrated after Sunday's 24-0 loss to the Miami Dolphins, which moved them to 0-6 on the season.

"We can't f--king wait until the fourth quarter to start playing," he told reporters.

He also echoed the comments of head coach Adam Gase from a week ago, saying the team looked far better in practice than it has shown in games:

"If you watched these guys practice, how they go through the week and the effort and how these guys are trying to get all this stuff right," Gase told reporters last week after a 30-10 loss to the Arizona Cardinals. "If you were there day in and day out and saw those guys, how they practiced last week, you wouldn't know what our record was."

The Jets are a unique level of bad. They've been outscored 185-75 this season. They've been held under 20 points five times and scored 10 or fewer points three times. On Sunday, they had just 263 yards from scrimmage and were a woeful 2-of-17 on third down.

Put another way, they had more time of possession, fewer turnovers and more rushing yards than the Dolphins on Sunday and still lost by 24 points.

It's been a while since the Jets were good. But they generally aren't this bad, either.

The New York Jets are winless through six games after falling to the Miami Dolphins in a 24-0 blowout Sunday. What's going wrong for the Jets as they're off to their worst start in 24 years? 

According to head coach Adam Gase, everything.

"We haven't done anything well at all," Gase said after Sunday's loss, per ESPN's Rich Cimini.

Against the Dolphins, who pitched their first shutout in six seasons and their first against the Jets since the 1982 AFC Championship Game, Jets quarterback Joe Flacco was 21-of-44 passing for 186 yards and an interception, while running back Frank Gore led the way for the Le'Veon Bell-less Jets with 46 yards on 11 carries. Wide receiver Breshad Perriman had four catches for 62 yards. 

Gore, a 16-year veteran, also expressed his frustration with his team during his postgame press conference. 

Gase, who is 7-15 in his tenure with the Jets and hasn't won a game in New York since December, said he isn't thinking about being fired and is looking ahead to Week 7. 

"I have to focus on making sure our guys are ready to go when we get back in the building," Gase said, per the New York Post's Brian Costello.  

The Jets host the 4-1 Buffalo Bills on Sunday.

New York Jets head coach Adam Gase responded to defensive coordinator Gregg Williams' apparent jab at the team's offense this week.

According to Al Iannazzone of Newsday, Gase said, "Everyone needs to shut up and play," when asked about Williams' comments during the CBS production meeting.

Gase further addressed the matter following Sunday's 24-0 loss to the Miami Dolphins.

"Yeah, I wasn't happy about it, but we talked about it," Gase told reporters. "Right now, our players are doing such a good job as far as trying to get things righted. It's just that everything we say, it matters. He understood that we have to set the right example."

Per ESPN's Rich Cimini, Williams said the following when asked Friday about the Jets' defensive struggles this season: "It's not a very good number—and a lot of it's not all defensively. It's points on the board and we've got to do a good job of that, and how you do that is make them kick more field goals, got to do a better job in field-position-type things. As you see, the scoring is up in the league, but it still makes me sick."

When asked to clarify what he meant when saying "it's not all defensively," Williams said, "You'd have to figure it out."

The Jets entered Sunday's game against the Dolphins as arguably the worst team in the NFL with an 0-5 record.

New York has been a mess on both sides of the ball, as it ranked 31st in total offense and 32nd in scoring, as well as 25th in total defense and 30th in scoring defense ahead of Week 6.

Despite their lack of success, the Jets entered the week with a plus-two turnover differential. That means the defense hasn't necessarily been dealt too many poor hands in terms of working with a short field, although New York's 86 first downs ranked 30th in the NFL entering the week.

With the Jets unable to sustain long drives on offense, the defense has spent too much time on the field throughout the 2020 campaign.

Gase is the offensive play-caller, and while he said last week that he was open to giving up those duties, he decided to retain them ahead of the game against Miami.

Williams suggesting that the defense has been put in tough situations by the offense was essentially a direct shot at Gase and a microcosm of the internal struggles that seem to be plaguing the Jets.

With safety Jamal Adams forcing a trade to the Seattle Seahawks before the season and running back Le'Veon Bell getting himself released last week, there is seemingly no more dysfunctional franchise in the NFL right now than the Jets.

The New York Jets released running back Le'Veon Bell in order to avoid a potential payout as a result of injury, according to Adam Schefter of ESPN.

Bell had an $8 million guarantee in his contract for 2021 if he had suffered a long-term injury. The Jets avoided this risk by releasing him just five weeks into the 2020 season.

The Kansas City Chiefs later signed the veteran running back to a one-year deal.

Bell signed a four-year contract with the Jets in 2019 that was worth up to $61 million, featuring $25 million fully guaranteed.

He struggled in his first year in New York, rushing for 789 yards and three touchdowns. The 3.2 yards per attempt and 52.6 rushing yards per game were the lowest marks of his career.

The running back wasn't any better to begin 2020, totaling just 74 rushing yards in two appearances. He missed three games with a hamstring injury, creating more health concerns for a player who has had just one 16-game season since entering the league in 2013.

The Jets could have waited until the end of the year to release Bell or traded him ahead of the Nov. 3 deadline, but the early release removes the added risk of injury. With an 0-5 record to start 2020, there was little to no incentive to keep the high-priced player on the roster.

New York seemingly plans to finish the year with Frank Gore and La'Mical Perine in the backfield.  

New York Jets defensive coordinator Gregg Williams offered a cryptic message about the team's offense under head coach Adam Gase.

Speaking to reporters Friday, Williams vented his frustration with how things have gone for the Jets defense.

"It's not a very good number—and a lot of it's not all defensively," he said, referring to New York's 32.2 points allowed per game. "It's points on the board and we've got to do a good job of that, and how you do that is make them kick more field goals, got to do a better job in field-position-type things. As you see, the scoring is up in the league, but it still makes me sick."

After Williams continued by saying, "A lot of it's not all defensively," he wrapped up his press conference by telling reporters they will "have to figure it out."

Williams was hired by Gase, who calls plays for the Jets offense, to work on his staff in January 2019. The Jets under Gase's watch have turned into a complete mess. They finished a respectable 7-9 in his first season but are winless through five games in 2020.

Le'Veon Bell was released this week, 19 months after he signed a four-year contract. The offense ranks last in points per game (15.0).

Neither Gase nor Williams has been able to find any answer for what ails the team. The Jets are one of only three winless teams in the NFL and have allowed at least 27 points in each of their first five games.

Teams have inquired about a trade for New York Jets defensive end Quinnen Williams, according to Bleacher Report's Connor Rogers. 

Per Rogers, Jets general manager Joe Douglas is not necessarily seeking to trade the former first-round pick, but "for the right return, they would." 

Williams, an Alabama product, was selected by the Jets with the third overall pick in the 2019 draft and signed to a four-year deal worth $32.5 million.

After he was fined $21,056 for a late hit in the Jets' second preseason game, the 6'3", 303-pounder played in 13 games as a rookie, making nine starts. He posted 28 combined tackles, with four tackles for loss, 2.5 sacks and six quarterback hits while defending one pass and recovering one fumble. 

In 2020, the Alabama native has started every game for the 0-5 Jets, with 19 combined tackles (three for loss) and two quarterback hits. His two sacks this season are tied for most on the team. In Week 4, he was fined $25,000 for two personal fouls against the Denver Broncos. 

Behind Williams, the Jets can look to third-year Fort Hayes State product Nathan Shepherd and rookie Bryce Huff.