Pressure on Jets’ defense to make Week 1 disaster an anomaly

In case you hadn’t heard over the past couple of years, the Jets have a tendency to tout their place in the NFL defensive rankings because they’ve been good on that side of the ball. 

They haven’t made the playoffs or produced a winning season in that span, but their defense was ranked No. 3 in the league in yards allowed and 12th in points yielded last season. In 2022, they ranked fourth in both of those categories. 

So, what took place in Sunday’s season opener at the 49ers was difficult to swallow — particularly the 180 rushing yards and 6.9 yards per carry San Francisco gashed them with in an utter show of dominance. 

A backup running back named Jordan Mason, who played in place of injured MVP candidate Christian McCaffrey, rushed for 147 of those yards on 28 carries. This after Mason had rushed for a total of 464 yards in his previous 33 NFL games. 

Which leads us to Sunday’s Jets game at the Titans, who are offensively vulnerable — particularly at quarterback with second-year Will Levis coming off a miserable opener in which he turned the ball over three times on two interceptions and a lost fumble. 

If the Jets defensive players, who were undoubtedly embarrassed by the way they were pushed around by the 49ers, don’t come out against Levis and the Titans like “a bunch of crazed dogs’’ — to borrow from the great Lawrence Taylor — then we have a problem here.