Game recap

Jets @ Titans

2026 Wk 1 · TEN 10, NYJ 23

A quarterback who leaves a franchise almost never comes back to win for it again. The list of gaps above 2,000 days holds three names across 28 seasons, and Smith's gap beats the next one, Case Keenum's, by 1,001 days. The 2026 line also looks nothing like the 2013 to 2014 version: zero interceptions on 24 throws, where his ten earlier Jets wins included six.

FanIQ Research · September 14, 2026 · 7 facts, every one from the play-by-play

Geno Smith's last win as the Jets' quarterback came on December 28, 2014. The next one took 4,277 days.

Rare

Longest gaps between wins for the same team by a quarterback, 1999 to 2026 (regular season, 20+ attempts, every gap above 2,000 days)

QB	Team	Previous win	Next win	Days
Geno Smith	NYJ	2014-12-28	2026-09-13	4,277
Case Keenum	HOU	2014-12-28	2023-12-17	3,276
Josh Johnson	WAS	2018-12-16	2026-01-04	2,576

Every Jets win with Geno Smith throwing 20 or more passes

Season	Wk	Result	Cmp/Att	Yds	TD	INT
2013	1	NYJ 18, TB 17	24/38	256	1	1
2013	3	NYJ 27, BUF 20	16/29	331	2	2
2013	5	NYJ 30, ATL 28	16/20	199	3	0
2013	7	NYJ 30, NE 27	17/33	233	1	1
2013	14	NYJ 37, LV 27	16/25	219	1	1
2013	16	NYJ 24, CLE 13	20/36	214	2	0
2013	17	NYJ 20, MIA 7	17/27	190	0	0
2014	1	NYJ 19, LV 14	23/28	221	1	1
2014	15	NYJ 16, TEN 11	16/28	179	1	0
2014	17	NYJ 37, MIA 24	20/25	358	3	0
2026	1	NYJ 23, TEN 10	19/24	215	0	0

Smith completed 19 of 24 passes for 215 yards with no touchdowns and no interceptions. It was his 11th win as the Jets' quarterback and his first since a 37 to 24 game at Miami in the 2014 finale. Two of those 11 wins came in Nashville: 16 to 11 in 2014 and this one. No other quarterback since 1999 has gone even 3,300 days between wins for one franchise.

Why it matters. A quarterback who leaves a franchise almost never comes back to win for it again. The list of gaps above 2,000 days holds three names across 28 seasons, and Smith's gap beats the next one, Case Keenum's, by 1,001 days. The 2026 line also looks nothing like the 2013 to 2014 version: zero interceptions on 24 throws, where his ten earlier Jets wins included six.

2 of 11 on third down and a 13 point win. From 2020 through 2025 only 11 teams did that, and 2 were the Jets.

Anomaly

Wins by 13 or more points at 20% or worse on third down (10+ attempts), 2020 through 2025 regular season, plus this game

Season	Wk	Team	Result	3rd down	Margin
2021	6	LA	LA 38, NYG 11	2/11	27
2022	6	NYJ	NYJ 27, GB 10	1/10	17
2022	12	CAR	CAR 23, DEN 10	2/12	13
2023	1	ATL	ATL 24, CAR 10	2/10	14
2023	18	NYJ	NYJ 17, NE 3	3/15	14
2024	4	TEN	TEN 31, MIA 12	2/12	19
2024	7	PHI	PHI 28, NYG 3	1/13	25
2024	17	MIA	MIA 20, CLE 3	2/11	17
2025	12	BAL	BAL 23, NYJ 10	2/11	13
2025	14	MIA	MIA 34, NYJ 10	2/10	24
2025	18	MIN	MIN 16, GB 3	2/10	13
2026	1	NYJ	NYJ 23, TEN 10	2/11	13

Third down in this game

Team	Attempts	Converted	Rate
NYJ	11	2	18.2%
TEN	12	4	33.3%

From 2020 through 2025, 249 team games finished at 20 percent or worse on third down with at least 10 attempts. 61 of those teams won, and only 11 won by 13 or more. The Jets' win in Nashville fits the same line: 2 of 11, a 13 point margin. Tennessee converted 4 of 12 and lost anyway. The Jets appear in five of the twelve rows: twice as the winner before this game, twice in 2025 on the wrong end, and now as the winner again.

Why it matters. A team that fails on third down usually loses because its drives stall, so a comfortable win at 18 percent means the Jets moved the ball on first and second down and rarely needed a third. The 6 play, 90 yard touchdown drive in the third quarter is the model. It also says the margin was built on efficiency and field position rather than sustained possession, which is a profile that can swing hard week to week.

29th on offense and 31st on defense in 2025. In Week 1 both Jets units beat every 2025 season average.

Comparison

Offensive EPA per play, 2025 regular season, top 3 and bottom 4 of 32

Rank	Team	Plays	EPA/play
1	NE	1017	0.159
2	LA	1056	0.145
3	BUF	1065	0.136
29	NYJ	1009	-0.127
30	TEN	995	-0.160
31	CLE	1028	-0.190
32	LV	942	-0.215

Defensive EPA per play allowed, 2025 regular season, top 3, Tennessee, and bottom 3 of 32 (lower is better)

Rank	Team	Plays	EPA allowed
1	HOU	982	-0.131
2	SEA	1061	-0.116
3	JAX	1030	-0.105
28	TEN	992	0.101
31	NYJ	1053	0.147
32	DAL	1027	0.167

This game, pass and run plays only

Team	Plays	Off EPA/play	Def EPA allowed
NYJ	60	0.168	-0.119
TEN	49	-0.119	0.168

New York's offense produced plus 0.168 EPA per play, above New England's league best 2025 average of 0.159. Its defense held Tennessee to minus 0.119 per play, a mark only Houston (minus 0.131) bettered across the whole 2025 season. The Jets ranked 29th on offense and 31st on defense a year ago. One game against an offense that ranked 30th in 2025 is a small sample, and the 2025 rows are full season averages.

Why it matters. The 2025 Jets were bad on both sides of the ball at the same time, which is the hardest profile to fix in one offseason. Sixty snaps in Nashville is not proof that either unit is fixed, but a swing of roughly 0.30 EPA per play on offense and 0.27 on defense against an opponent that ranked 30th on offense last year is far beyond normal week to week noise. The useful question for Week 2 is how much of that swing was Tennessee and how much was New York.

The Jets ran on 60 percent of snaps, but 24 Geno Smith dropbacks did the damage at plus 0.406 EPA per play.

Split

Pass versus run in this game, both teams

Team	Type	Plays	Yards	EPA/play	Success
NYJ	Pass	24	215	0.406	50.0%
NYJ	Run	36	155	0.010	50.0%
TEN	Pass	35	127	-0.210	42.9%
TEN	Run	14	68	0.110	50.0%

Yards per pass play, 2025 regular season, top 1 and bottom 3 of 32

Rank	Team	Pass plays	Yds/pass play
1	NE	551	7.73
30	CLE	609	4.61
31	TEN	623	4.53
32	NYJ	556	4.27

The Jets' 36 runs came out flat at plus 0.010 EPA per play, while 24 pass plays gained 215 yards, 8.96 per play. Tennessee was the mirror image: 14 runs at plus 0.110 and 35 pass plays, including 3 sacks, at minus 0.210 and 3.63 yards each. The two lowest ranked passing games of 2025 by yards per pass play met here and went in opposite directions.

Why it matters. Run rate and run value are different things. New York's game plan leaned on the ground, but the ground game only kept the offense on schedule; the yardage that turned drives into points came through the air, and it came without a sack or a turnover. For Tennessee the split is the worrying one: the few runs worked, and the offense still threw 35 times into the play type that was failing.

Breece Hall's tenth 100 yard game. Since 1999 only Curtis Martin and Thomas Jones have more for the Jets.

Milestone

Most 100 yard rushing games for the Jets, 1999 to 2026 regular season

Player	100 yd games	Seasons
Curtis Martin	35	1999 to 2005
Thomas Jones	16	2007 to 2009
Breece Hall	10	2022 to 2026
Chris Ivory	8	2013 to 2015
Shonn Greene	6	2009 to 2012
Bilal Powell	5	2013 to 2017

Every Breece Hall 100 yard rushing game

Season	Wk	Carries	Yards	TD
2022	6	20	116	1
2023	1	10	127	0
2023	5	22	177	1
2023	18	37	178	1
2024	6	18	113	0
2025	1	19	107	0
2025	5	14	113	0
2025	8	18	133	2
2025	17	14	111	1
2026	1	22	102	1

Hall carried 22 times for 102 yards and a 4 yard touchdown around left end in the third quarter. Three of his ten came in Week 1 (2023, 2025, 2026), and four came in 2025 alone. Curtis Martin's count starts in 1999, the first season in this table, so his 1998 debut year with the Jets is not included.

Why it matters. Hall passed Chris Ivory and now sits behind two franchise workhorses with 28 seasons of Jets running backs in between. Opening a third season with a 100 yard game says the volume is still his: 22 carries to Braelon Allen's 10 in this game. The gap to Thomas Jones is six games, which at his 2025 pace of four a season is a 2027 conversation.

Tennessee scored at 5:08 of the first quarter, then waited 47:23. One Titans game since 1999 waited longer.

Trend

Every Tennessee possession

Qtr	Plays	Yards	Result
1	13	46	Field goal
1	4	2	Punt
2	1	0	Kickoff return fumble
2	4	7	Punt
3	7	20	Punt
3	5	7	Punt
3	9	30	Punt
4	4	2	Punt
4	6	16	Punt
4	11	65	Touchdown

Longest waits between a Titans score and their next score in one game, 1999 to 2026 (regular season and playoffs)

Season	Round	Result	Wait
2010	Wk 2	PIT 19, TEN 11	54:47
2026	Wk 1	NYJ 23, TEN 10	47:23
2005	Wk 4	IND 31, TEN 10	45:27
2008	Divisional	BAL 13, TEN 10	45:12
2017	Divisional	NE 35, TEN 14	44:14

Tennessee's opening drive went 13 plays for 46 yards and a 42 yard Joey Slye field goal. The next eight possessions produced 84 yards on 40 plays: seven punts and a kickoff return fumble by Chimere Dike that the Jets recovered at the Tennessee 38. The Titans did not score again until Cam Ward's 11 yard touchdown pass to Elic Ayomanor with 2:45 left, by which point the Jets led 23 to 3. Across 443 Titans games since 1999 with at least two scoring plays, only the 2010 loss to Pittsburgh had a longer wait between scores. League wide from 1999 through 2025, 81 of 14,000 team games contained a wait this long, three of them in 2025.

Why it matters. This is what a 13 point margin looks like when neither offense is explosive: one team stops producing entirely. Eight straight empty possessions at home spanned the entire second and third quarters and most of the fourth, and the Jets scored 16 points in that window to put the game away. The late touchdown cut a 20 point lead to 13.

Six rookie tight ends from 1999 through 2025 ran for a touchdown. Kenyon Sadiq joined them in his first game.

Rare

Rookie tight ends with a rushing touchdown, 1999 through 2025 regular season (complete list), plus Sadiq

Season	Wk	Player	Team	Carries	Rush yds
2007	16	Jackie Battle	KC	1	3
2021	3	Tommy Tremble	CAR	1	7
2022	5	Daniel Bellinger	NYG	1	2
2022	12	Peyton Hendershot	DAL	1	2
2025	4	Tyler Warren	IND	2	3
2025	16	Harold Fannin Jr.	CLE	1	1
2026	1	Kenyon Sadiq	NYJ	1	3

Sadiq's second touch as a pro was a 3 yard run around left end at 10:50 of the first quarter, the first points of the game. He finished with 3 catches for 21 yards. Daniel Bellinger, on the 2022 row, was on the other sideline on Sunday and caught one pass for 7 yards for Tennessee. From 1999 through 2025, only one tight end of any experience level scored a rushing touchdown in Week 1: Jackie Battle in 2013, also for Tennessee.

Why it matters. A tight end carrying the ball is a designed play, not an accident, so the Jets put a rookie's first NFL game on a call sheet that most teams never open. Six rookie tight ends in 27 seasons scored on the ground before him, and none of them did it before Week 3. It says the coaching staff trusts Sadiq's athleticism enough to build for him immediately, which matters more for his role than the 3 yards do.

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