The Jets may not be able to rescue this season in one afternoon, but Sunday against the Bills could still tell them something important about the offense they have been trying to build. If Garrett Wilson is cleared from concussion protocol, the group that has spent most of the year in pieces may finally get a chance to function together.
Aaron Glenn said Friday that Wilson should be available for Sunday’s game at MetLife Stadium, and Wilson was a full participant in practice and listed as questionable. That would give the Jets another meaningful piece back for a unit that has had little chance to play as intended, with Wilson and Breece Hall last appearing together in the Week 3 loss to the Lions on Sept. 27.
A rare chance to see the full group
The timing matters because the Jets have not had much opportunity this season to evaluate what their offense looks like when its best playmakers are on the field at the same time. The group has been interrupted by injuries across multiple weeks: Omar Cooper Jr. missed Weeks 2-5 with a sprained ankle, Adonai Mitchell missed Weeks 3-6 with a finger injury and Breece Hall missed Weeks 4-8 with a quad injury. Wilson’s concussion came in the loss to the Raiders the week before the Lions game, which only deepened the shortage of continuity.
In theory, the Jets can line up Wilson, Hall, Omar Cooper Jr., Adonai Mitchell, Kenyon Sadiq and Mason Taylor with Geno Smith at quarterback. That is a lot of talent for a team that has needed more than talent alone. It needs timing, spacing and enough time on task to turn individual names into a working structure.
Glenn made the point plainly when he said, “There’s only one ball, and I wish there were more than that because those guys are extremely talented and they have the capabilities of making not just big plays, but able to sustain drives for us by the way they operate.” That is the real issue here. The Jets do not need every player to post gaudy numbers. They need the offense to stop looking like a collection of separate ideas and start looking like something coherent.
What it means now
Breece Hall put the situation in simpler terms. He called it a lot of “what-ifs,” but said the team has to “snap back to reality and live in the present.” The present, as he put it, is finding a way to win. That is fair, because the Jets have already dropped five one-score games, and Hall said teams know they are good enough to be competitive. The frustration is that close games do not turn into standings points unless the offense finishes drives and the team gets more than flashes.
It may already be too late for the Jets to save the season, but that does not make Sunday meaningless. If Wilson plays, and if the Jets can finally use more of the offensive pieces together, they may at least learn what this group can look like before next year. That is not the same as changing the record. It is still useful. For a team that has spent most of the year waiting for its best players to line up at once, that might be the most honest kind of progress available.
