Why bland schedule release is great news for Jets

Moving in silence.

That is what New York Jets head coach Aaron Glenn wanted to do when he spoke at owners meetings in Florida at the end of March. While the coach may have used that term to explain the lack of leaks in the building, there’s another obvious application to that as well.

In the final years of the previous regime, the Jets always seemed to be in the news. With a Hall-of-Fame quarterback on the roster, New York had plenty of primetime games scheduled throughout the 2023 and 2024 campaigns.

That won’t be the case this time. And it might just be the best thing forward for the franchise.

Quiet Schedule Release for Jets

With the NFL’s schedule release coming up on Wednesday, some of the top marquee matchups have been leaked to the general public.

Games like the Philadelphia Eagles opening up the 2025 season against the Dallas Cowboys, or their matchup with the Chicago Bears on Black Friday are just some of those examples.

These are obvious matchups. The Eagles are defending Super Bowl champions, so they should expect to be in prime time a ton this year.

The Jets, meanwhile, only won five games last season. In the minds of some NFL fans, they have brought in a worse quarterback than the one they had before, and also have a head coach who is a massive unknown despite a positive outlook overall across the league.

New York and their fans should expect a lot of 1 p.m. games throughout the 2025 season.

The Jets will likely still be in prime time for their annual Thursday night and Monday night showdowns. But the general scope of New York’s 2025 schedule will be placed on the early afternoon window of NFL Sundays.

Again, that’s not a bad thing.

In 2009 – the first year of the Rex Ryan era with the Jets – New York had eight 1 p.m. starts. They had five games in the 4 p.m. slot with one of those games being on the west coast in Oakland.

They only had two prime time slots before being flexed on the final week of the season needing a victory to get into the playoffs. By and large, though, the Jets lived on one o’clock that season.

A similar situation could be on the doorstep for Glenn’s team this year. New York will need to prove a lot if they want to be considered a playoff team. Once they actually show they are capable of that, then their matchups this season can be flexed to better times.

Until then, though, the Jets will have to keep operating out of the shadows.

And that is perfectly fine for their staff.