The New York Jets have forced a reality check for the Tennessee Titans, specifically when it comes to the two trades that landed Jarvis Brownlee and T’Vondre Sweat in the Big Apple.
“If we accept the explanation that Brownlee and Sweat were traded away in large part because of a poor fit with the culture that [Titans GM Mike] Borgonzi wants, it’s certainly fair to question where that culture helped the Titans on Sunday,” PaulKuharsky.com contributor Mike Herndon posted on X on September 15. “Because I saw where Sweat and Brownlee helped the Jets.”
Herndon quoted a post showing how Brownlee, in particular, impacted the Week 1 win.
• 82.4 PFF grade (highest on the Jets defense • 78.4 PFF run defense grade (highest on the Jets defense) • 82.0 PFF coverage grade (highest on the Jets defense)
• 4 tackles (0 missed) • 2 run stops
• 2 catches allowed for 8
Brownlee even made his way back into the contest after being carted off the field with an apparent calf injury. The Jets made both Brownlee and Sweat captains for their homecoming against their former team.
Sweat finished with 1 total tackle to Brownlee’s 4 against the Titans, but he also showed that the he can impact the game beyond clogging the middle, giving chase to Tennessee’s Cam Ward.
Pro Football Focus graded Brownlee as the Jets’ top defender; Sweat was their second-worst.
Nevertheless, the former Titans helped the Jets get a season-opening victory over former head coach Robert Saleh. Sweat was a second-round pick of the Titans’, taken with the 38th overall pick in the 2024 draft.
Former Titans Help Jets Notch Season-Opening Victory
Brownlee was a fifth-round selection, taken 146th overall in that same class. Despite following Sweat in the draft, the former beat the latter to New York, getting traded in September 2025.
The Jets acquired Sweat in February for EDGE and former first-round pick Jermaine Johnson.
Johnson was the 26th overall pick in 2022, and he was a Pro Bowler in 2023 with the Jets. On Sunday, though, Johnson finished with 2 combined stops and 1 hit on Jets starting quarterback Geno Smith.
PFF graded Johnson as the Titans’ fifth-best defender, and his 66.0 mark would have been good for sixth on the Jets.
Now, the former Titans duo will try to help the Jets Reach 2-0.
Jets Gave Themselves a Big Postseason Boost
There remains a long way to go for Brownlee, Sweat, head coach Aaron Glenn and the Jets, but they have given themselves an early leg up on making the postseason.
“For the 16 teams that started 2025 with a victory, the proverbial tea leaves of the last 10 seasons tell us that good things may, in fact, be around the corner. That’s because 56 of the 128 teams that started 2-0 (or 43.8%) reached the postseason, with 35 out of 80 (or 43.8%) made the Divisional Round,” RotoWire.com’s Christopher Boan wrote on September 10.
“Throw in the fact that five out of 10 won the Super Bowl and 12 out of 20 reached the ‘Big Game’ and you have a decent idea of how important it is to get off to a solid start in the modern NFL.”
The Jets can give themselves an even bigger boost in Week 2.
“A week ago the story was simple: win your opener and your playoff odds roughly double,” RotoWire’s Thomas Leary wrote on September 11. “After two games, the gaps get starker. Since 2016, teams that start 2-0 have made the playoffs 66.7% of the time. Teams at 1-1 sit right around a coin flip (45.1%). And teams that fall to 0-2 make it just 14.3% of the time — with a ceiling far lower than that number suggests.”
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