NFL Betting: Will the New York Jets Win a Game This Season?

2020 has been an almost total dumpster fire. From the person in charge being a confused mess who can’t justify why he should stick around, to a pandemic ripping through the population, to no one coming together at all, it’s been an exhausting experience to say the least -- and those New York Jets are only halfway through their season.

That’s right, all of those things are situations the New Jersey B-Squad has been struggling with this season, to the point where they’ve even cut one of the few stars on their offense -- Le'Veon Bell -- after he “liked” a Twitter comment criticizing head coach Adam Gase. Who took his spot? The 800-year old wonder, Frank Gore, of course! Between locker room crises like this, injuries and trades ravaging the defense and Sam Darnold, and just a general lack of cohesion and talent on the roster, it’s no wonder the Jets head into their Week 10 bye with a winless 0-9 record.

But can that trajectory hold? Let’s dig into this pile of shame and embrace the suck. Will the 2020 Jets join the Hall of Lame alongside the 0-16 Detroit Lions from 2008 and Cleveland Browns of 2017?

The Haters and the Losers

I assume that if you’re a Jets fan at this point, you almost just want to throw in the towel and announce you’re drafting Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence 1.01 already. I hear you, I understand, and I apologize; this is only going to get worse before it gets better.

In order to examine just how ineffectual Gang Green have been on the field, we turn to numberFire’s signature metric, Net Expected Points (NEP). This metric helps us to describe plays, players, and teams in terms of the potential scoreboard value they create. By adding down-and-distance value to standard box score information, we can see just how much each play and each team as a whole influence the outcome of games. For more info on NEP, check out our glossary.

In specific, when we want to measure a team’s success or failure against another’s, we prefer to look at the schedule-adjusted version of the NEP metric. We have also split this value by offense and defense, and by both passing and rushing.

So how do the 2020 Jets at the halfway mark match up to the legendarily bad teams of the NEP era? The tables below shows their marks in each schedule-adjusted NEP per play category compared to the 2008 Lions and 2017 Browns.

Remember that lower NEP numbers defensively are good.

While not all metrics adjust for era -- making a comparison between a team this year and one a decade and a half ago somewhat meaningless -- NEP allows us to look at a team relative to the environment they played in.

It’s fascinating to see how similarly the Jets match up with these two winless squads, from league rank in each metric to the actual scores. The one saving grace that New York has this season is a top-10 run defense, although Cleveland was also top 10 in 2017 and that didn’t save them. That was largely due to their bottom-three passing defense -- a mark which the 2020 Jets are currently surpassing by both rank and production (again, negative is better for Defensive NEP).

In addition, the Jets' defense ranks slightly better than either of the other two units, despite giving up as much Adjusted Defensive NEP per play as the '08 Lions. This higher ranking might be a bit of a fluke considering how down defensive production has been across the league thanks to this year's pandemic-shortened offseason.

When we look at the Jets' offensive production, it's almost shocking that this team ranks lower in every metric and has produced fewer NEP per play than even the worst two teams of the last 20 years. The passing ineptitude of the Jets' offense is actually rivaling that of the DeShone Kizer-led Browns, and the run game is somehow producing far less value than that of the Lions' Kevin Smith and Rudi Johnson duo. All of this, in addition, is occurring as the Jets boast a lower pass-to-run ratio -- in the era of high-flying passing attacks -- than a team back when 300-attempt running backs still existed everywhere.

It's hard to fathom, but these Jets are currently on pace to best the Detroit Lions' 2008 horror show when it comes to poor value production. Currently on pace to produce 47.5 expected points of offense below replacement level and allow 205.3 expected points defensively above replacement, Gotham's bombers are in line to be an all-time worst team (and easily the worst defense) in the NEP era.

If they stay this course, they would be on-par with the 2008 and 2009 St. Louis Rams, the 2008 and 2009 Lions, and the 2013 Jacksonville Jaguars.

Are We There Yet?

Things look truly bleak for the Jets right now on the win probability front. The sportsbooks mostly consider them a lock to remain horrendous through the end of the season, and our models at numberFire don’t disagree.

When looking at our Survivor Pool Matrix, we can see the current win probability for any team in any game through the remainder of the season. At a cursory glance, we can see that the Jets are one of just four teams (including the Denver Broncos, Dallas Cowboys and Jaguars) to not be favored in any game from Week 10 on. They are one of only two teams (alongside the Jaguars) to have no upcoming contest with a win probability of 33% or more and also one of just two teams (also along with Jacksonville) to have more than one upcoming tilt with a win probability of 10% or less. You can see the Jets’ schedule and win probabilities below.

Not good.

There’s also little reason to think that the Jets could up their win probabilities going forward unless their opponents suffer key injuries or begin making terrible in-game decisions.

New York is currently dealing with a shoulder injury to franchise quarterback Darnold -- who they likely won’t aggressively push to play in a completely lost season -- and having to run out a washed -- though valiantly trying -- Joe Flacco in his stead.

Among the 34 quarterbacks to drop back at least 100 times through Week 9, Flacco’s -0.02 Passing NEP per drop back ranks seventh worst; Darnold’s -0.25 is at the bottom. Both of their Passing Success Rates -- the percentage of drop backs resulting in a positive NEP gain -- are also bottom-five marks among these quarterbacks.

In addition, the rushing attack is led by the ancient (and finally slowing down) Gore and mid-round prospect La'Mical Perine thanks to Bell’s earlier release. The old-timer and young gun have combined for -0.09 Rushing NEP per attempt, and both rank in the bottom 10 among the 56 running backs to carry the ball 45 times or more through Week 9. So no help will come in that phase of the offensive game, either.

To make matters worse, they traded star defensive back Jamal Adams before the season, traded linebacker Avery Williamson last week, and lost stud rookie left tackle Mekhi Becton to injury during Week 9.

The odds are not in their favor.

Look at Your Life and Choices

Online Sportsbook currently has it at +230 that a team will go winless. That implies odds of 30.3%, which fall right in line with our numbers. After the Jets' heartbreaking Week 10 loss to the New England Patriots, numberFire's Chief Analyst, Keith Goldner, simulated out the season and found a 30.0% chance that the Jets go winless.

In addition, FanDuel Sportsbook had -390 odds that New York will have the worst regular season record in the league this year, making them the odds-on favorite there, as well. This holds an implied probability of 79.6%. Our algorithm shows close to an 82.0% chance that the Jets secure the first overall pick, meaning both of these bets are close to even value but definitely in play, specifically the odds of holding the worst record.

The Jets have been an utter disaster in 2020, and New York will undoubtedly be thrilled when the final whistle blows on this season. The question is whether they can salvage anything from the rubble and whether you can take a small consolation prize, as well.