“What do you think of the Jets foundation and what will it take to turn the franchise around?”
Harrison Phillips paused before answering that question on Monday morning.
In his eighth NFL season, the defensive tackle is in the middle of a situation unlike any of his years with the Bills and Vikings.
Given their track record, those new to the Jets, including Phillips, had to realize this likely would happen.
Though he played for the franchise for eight years, first-year coach Aaron Glenn never saw a drought such as this.
The 23-10 loss to the Ravens on Sunday was the ninth defeat for the Jets, stamping 2025 as a losing season, their 10th consecutive year without a winning record.
All there is to play for in the remaining six games are signs of improvement in the hope to turn the tide in 2026.
The result puts the Jets in the middle of the same challenge they’ve endured the past decade — building winning habits for the future during a losing season.
It will prove to be a true test for those like Phillips and Glenn who are getting their first taste of the daunting cycle.
Phillips, the former Stanford product and 2018 third-round pick, has been a part of two losing seasons — one each in Buffalo and Minnesota prior to arriving in New York this offseason.
But he hasn’t seen a 2-9 season in his career until now. It only grew as bad as 2-7 in his rookie year with the Bills, who bounced back to go 10-6 the next year.
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While Phillips admitted there were things to be figured out regarding the “identity” of the Jets, he went on to reaffirm his faith in the organization and called back to a speech he gave at a team meeting prior to the first win of the season against the Bengals in Week 8.
“I spoke to the team earlier this year and my message was, ‘You have to have a mentality to play the long game.’ And I said to them, ‘You might beat me yesterday, you might beat me today, hell you might even beat me tomorrow. But you will not beat me in the end. You have to have the power to be unstoppable,’ ” he said.
With that, Phillips also reminded his teammates that many of their losses were a few plays away from a different outcome, including Breece Hall’s fourth-quarter fumble on Baltimore’s 2-yard line as they trailed 20-10.
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“You have to have the mental toughness to play the long game, but you also have to have the maturity to recognize that it’s not as far away as you think,” he added.
The Jets hit a season low when Glenn became the first coach in franchise history to begin his tenure with six straight losses. Yet, now it has only grown as his name falls under the 10th straight losing Jets season and the worst 11-game start since the 2020 Jets started 0-11.
Currently, Glenn is the figure people within the organization will look to for inspiration toward a brighter future. It’s up to those who are new to be the difference-makers in leading the organization toward something better.
“Everyone wants to win now, but you cannot lose sight of what you’re trying to build,” Glenn said. “I try to make sure with our players and even our staff that we keep our focus on that even though we’re trying to win these games. We are trying to build things the right way to make sure that we sustain the winning that we’re going to do once this thing gets where it’s going to get to.
“It’s tough. It is. It is. But we have a forward-thinking mentality … and we have a vision of where we’re trying to go and we try not to lose sight of that.”
