By Jets X-Factor,Michael Nania

Copyright yardbarker

When you’re 0-3 in the NFL, your season is already on the line.

This is not MLB, or even the NBA. While it may “only” be three games, it represents 18% of a 17-game schedule. That’s the equivalent of an 0-15 start in basketball, or an 0-29 start in baseball.

Starting 0-3 should be enough of a sample to prompt major changes before the season gets out of hand.

The New York Jets, however, do not seem very desperate despite their winless start. That patience is partially justified due to the fact that a new, inexperienced regime is still getting its feet wet.

However, the Jets are ignoring some obvious avenues to improve their chances of winning games. New regime or not, any coaching staff should be making these moves.

It is unlikely that New York makes any of the following changes at the moment, but nonetheless, here are the moves that should be made.

Bench Micheal Clemons for (anyone)

The Jets’ insistence that they cannot do better than Micheal Clemons has reached an indefensible point.

While it would be hyperbolic to claim Clemons is the “worst” NFL player, it might not be a stretch to say he has been the worst-performing player in the league relative to his position this season.

Across 110 defensive snaps, here is the production Clemons has accumulated through three games:

Twice as many penalties (2) as pressures (1)

Twice as many missed tackles (2) as solo tackles (1)

Jets run defense with Clemons on field: 5.5 YPC allowed

Jets run defense with Clemons off field: 2.7 YPC allowed

With numbers like that, is it a stretch to say that New York’s defense would be better off going 10 on 11?

Clemons is twice as likely to do something negative as he is to do something positive. That is absolutely inexcusable at a position like defensive end, where it’s pretty rare to commit “negative” plays. We’re not talking about a cornerback here.

Last week, head coach Aaron Glenn defended Clemons by claiming he is helping the team beyond his stats.

“Sometimes when people, when they don’t see a stat, they feel like a player hasn’t done anything right,” Glenn said of Clemons. “But there’s other things that go on in the game that we ask players to do — that, again, that people really don’t understand.”

In fairness to Glenn, he has a point regarding the importance of off-the-stat-sheet contributions for defensive linemen. Some fans will knock a player just because he doesn’t get enough sacks or tackles (i.e. Quinnen Williams at times) despite the player actually making a much greater impact than his box score suggests.

In this case, though, Clemons does not offer any sort of positive impact beyond the box score.

Applying pressure on the quarterback is the No. 1 area where a defensive lineman can be impactful without making a mark in the box score. Well, in that category, Clemons has generated just one pressure on 54 pass-rush snaps this season, which is practice squad-level play for an NFL edge rusher. His 1.6% pressure rate is less than one-sixth of the 2025 league average for edge rushers (11.6%).

Defensive linemen can also make a subtle impact in the run game by executing their assignments to tee up run stuffs for teammates. Well, Clemons doesn’t offer that, either. If his brutal film wasn’t enough to prove this point, it can be proven by the stark on-off splits of the Jets’ run defense with him on the field (5.5 YPC allowed) and off of it (2.7 YPC allowed).