NY Jets are proving they can replicate rare strength

The 2025 New York Jets weren’t very good at many activities on the football field.

At one particular thing, though, they were one of the best football teams the world has ever seen.

Special teams.

According to FTN Fantasy, the Jets earned a special teams DVOA rating of 10.2%, which not only led the NFL by a wide margin but also finished as the fifth-best mark in NFL history dating back to 1978, the first season that the metric was tracked.

DVOA essentially takes into account all controllable facets of special teams and delivers a percentage rating that estimates how much more efficient the unit was than the league-average unit on each play.

When you think about it, if the Jets’ special teams was 10% better than the opposing special teams on every play, that adds up to a ton of cumulative point value across hundreds of plays in a 17-game season.

Those surplus points created by the special teams unit are not hard to find when you dig through the Jets’ 2025 season.

The Jets went 3-14, but without their historically dominant special teams unit, they easily could have gone winless. Special teams represented the difference on the scoreboard in each of their three narrow victories.

In a 39-38 win over the Bengals in Week 8, returner Isaiah Williams was named AFC Special Teams Player of the Week for his multitude of quality returns to help set up scoring drives. Given the one-point margin, the Jets likely lose if Williams delivers an average performance.

In a 27-20 win over the Browns in Week 10, the Jets scored two kickoff return touchdowns, bailing out an offense that gained just 169 yards. New York easily loses without those 14 special teams points.

In a 27-24 win over the Falcons in Week 13, the Jets needed a muffed-punt recovery near the goal line to set up a 2-yard touchdown in the second quarter for their first score of the game. In the fourth quarter, an 83-yard kick return allowed them to score a chip-shot field goal despite a 1-yard drive on offense. Nick Folk also made a 56-yard field goal at the buzzer to win the game.

The Jets’ special teams essentially added three wins to an otherwise zero-win team. The unit was that good—and the rest of the team was that bad.

In fact, if you take out the special teams, the 2025 Jets were one of the three worst teams in NFL history, according to DVOA. Their combined DVOA between offense and defense was -46.1%, the third-worst mark since the metric was first tracked in 1978.

That’s why it is imperative for the Jets’ special teams to be at least close to as effective as they were in 2025 if New York wants to compete for a playoff spot in 2026.

If the Jets’ special teams were average last year, they would have likely won zero games. That is the actual foundation New York is building upon, not three wins.

So, hypothetically, even if the Jets’ upgrades across the offense and defense yield a five-win improvement over 2025, that would only put the Jets at a five-win foundation before accounting for special teams performance. It would be up to the special teams to maintain their historically great production—worth approximately three wins—to push the Jets to an actual five-win improvement, landing them at eight wins.

If the special teams drop to league average, that would remove three-ish wins from last season, reducing a five-win improvement by the offense and defense to an actual improvement of two wins in the standings.

These numbers are purely hypothetical—it’s difficult to put an exact win-total value on certain facets of a football team. Regardless, whichever way you want to quantify it, the point stands: The Jets extracted a historic amount of value from their special teams last year, and if that performance is not maintained, it will probably make a huge negative impact in the standings.

Here’s the good news you came for: The early signs indicate that New York is capable of another elite season on special teams.

Chris Banjo is doing it again

Special teams coordinator Chris Banjo seems to be working magic with his unit once again. Through two preseason games, the Jets have Pro Football Focus’ highest-rated special teams unit, with a 90.1 grade (DVOA is unavailable for the preseason, so PFF grades will have to do).

While every football fan knows the preseason can be misleading, it is fair to say that special teams play in the preseason likely correlates more closely to the regular season than offensive and defensive play.

Many of the players appearing on special teams in the preseason will also be playing for the unit in the regular season, which cannot be said for the offense and defense, where starters play a minimal percentage of the preseason reps. The majority of special teams units, on the other hand, are comprised of the back-of-the-roster players who take up most of the preseason reps.

It is also true that special teams plays are less schematically complex than offense and defense. There may still be some schemes and strategies being hidden, but for the most part, the designs we see in the preseason on punts and kickoffs are not too different from the ones we will see in the regular season, which, again, differs greatly from offense and defense.

For these reasons, it’s fair to put a little more stock in a team’s special teams production than their offensive and defensive production.

That’s why it’s highly encouraging to see that Banjo has his group playing with the same tenacity and connectivity that we saw throughout the 2025 regular season. No matter who is out there for Banjo’s unit, the Jets always seem to get positive results.

The 2025 preseason showcased similarly positive signals. The Jets earned an 82.2 special teams grade from PFF, ranking fifth-best in the league. That number actually undershot the 90.6 grade they went on to earn in the regular season.

All systems are a go

Every facet of the Jets’ special teams unit is clicking.

In the return game, the Jets haven’t hit any home runs yet, but they’ve been consistent. They are averaging 28.3 yards per kick return and 11.1 yards per punt return. That is a great sign for the foundation of the return units, considering they have not even used their starting returners, Kene Nwangwu and Isaiah Williams, both of whom received All-Pro votes last year.

The kickoff unit has been sound, allowing 24.5 yards per return. Meanwhile, punter Austin McNamara is still doing his thing after an excellent 2025 season. He is averaging 47.9 yards per punt with a net average of 43.1 yards. The punt coverage team is giving up just 7.2 yards per return across six tries.

The kicking competition between Jason Sanders and Cade York appears to be settled. York had a controversial 38-yard make in the opener that sailed above the upright and could have been ruled a miss, and in Week 2, he missed a 59-yard attempt that would have made a statement.

Sanders, meanwhile, has made both his field goal attempts cleanly, along with both of his extra points. He looks healthy after missing the 2025 season with a hip injury. In his most recent season, Sanders made 37-of-41 field goal attempts (90.2%), including an outstanding 12-of-14 performance from 50+ yards, so he is capable of at least coming close to Nick Folk’s elite 2025 season (28-of-29).

Veteran long snapper Thomas Hennessy is reminding the world why the Jets have stuck with him for 10 years in a row. He’s already made two tackles and is PFF’s second-highest graded long snapper of the preseason at 86.2.

Back in April, the Jets signed an undrafted long snapper, Garrison Grimes, who earned the best Relative Athletic Score in history for the position. But Grimes couldn’t even make it past the first few days of training camp until the Jets had seen enough to waive Grimes and roll with Hennessy. Now, the veteran seems to be playing with renewed fire after receiving a little push in the summer.

Everything is going according to plan for the Jets’ special teams. There is nothing they can do to definitively prove that another top-five season in NFL history is coming, but they are doing everything in their power to inspire confidence that another strong performance is on the way.

Let’s make one thing clear: It is very unlikely that the Jets’ special teams will be as amazing as it was in 2025. The unit was essentially flawless. Only four groups in the last 48 seasons have been more efficient compared to league average. That will be incredibly hard to top.

Still, the Jets can absolutely contend for the league’s No. 1 spot once again. Many of the main characters from last year’s unit are returning, including the coordinator, punter, long snapper, both returners, and plenty of other core special teamers. The loss of Folk is a concern, but Sanders’ ceiling is high enough to offer the potential of coming close to Folk’s impact.

Banjo’s unit has changed (and will change) everything for the Jets

The importance of the Jets’ special teams in the franchise’s trajectory is often overlooked. Their greatness in 2025 was the separator between the colossal embarrassment of a winless campaign and a relatively forgivable 3-14 season.

How differently would things have gone if Banjo led an average unit? Would Aaron Glenn have returned? Would the Jets have drafted Fernando Mendoza?

The fact of the matter is this: On plays from scrimmage, the 2025 Jets were one of the worst professional football teams of all time. It highlights two things:

1. The Glenn-led Jets might have even further to go than their 3-14 record suggests.
2. The special teams has to be similarly dominant for the Jets to have a realistic chance of winning more than 5 games.

Special teams production is difficult to maintain from year to year. That is largely because a lot of what happens on special teams is inherently random. There is also significant roster turnover compared to offense and defense, given that the unit features many fringe players who could cycle on and off the roster from week to week.

Yet, it is this fluctuant phase of the game that hid a lot of cracks within the 2025 Jets. “Hiding cracks” seems like a crazy phrase to use for a 3-14 team, but it’s true. Going 3-14 and earning the second overall pick does not fully encapsulate how bad the 2025 Jets really were if you take out the special teams.

That leaves the Jets in an awkward position. They essentially chose to run it back with a coach who led a team of zero-win quality between offense and defense. And if they want to have a season that justifies said coach returning for a third year, they will probably need to field a second straight historically great season on special teams, which would be an unprecedented feat.

Suffice to say, the Jets’ special teams quietly made an enormous impact on the franchise’s future last year, and it is poised to have an unusually gargantuan weight on its shoulders once again in 2026.