The Jets dropped their fifth straight game on Sunday, a 23-6 loss to the Seahawks that knocked the Jets out of the playoffs for the 12th straight year. Here are some thoughts and observations from the game:

1. With the season now basically over, all eyes shift to owner Woody Johnson. Will he make someone pay for this collapse? Does this five-game (possibly six) losing streak overshadow any progress from this season and force him to make a change?

Johnson has not been in this situation in a while. He spent 2017-21 as the Ambassador to England and his brother Christopher fired Todd Bowles, Mike Maccagnan and Adam Gase.

Woody Johnson has not had a happy trigger finger in the past. Eric Mangini getting fired after just three seasons as head coach and John Idzik getting fired after two season as GM are the times he showed the least patience.

I think Johnson will spare Joe Douglas and Robert Saleh. Johnson needs to see the big picture here. This team made a big leap this season. They went from the doormat they had been over the past six seasons to a playoff contender in Week 17. There is a lot of young talent on this team. Douglas has done a good job in the past two years of building up the roster. Saleh has flipped the culture in the building. Even during this losing streak, there has not been a ton of finger pointing.

The Jets are a mess at the most important position in football. They have no quarterback. How much different would this team look if they had competent quarterback play? Douglas has to answer for drafting Zach Wilson at No. 2 overall last year, but his 2022 NFL Draft is so good that it buys him some time.

There is also the practical matter of paying multiple people for these jobs. The Jets have paid at least two coaches/GMs since 2019 when Bowles, Gase, Maccagnan and Douglas were all still under contract. Gase comes off the payroll in a few weeks. Johnson and his accountants surely would like at least a year of only paying one coach and one GM.

While I believe Douglas and Saleh will be safe, it gets trickier when you get below them …

2. Which brings us to offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur. Does Johnson step in and tell Saleh he needs to make a change at offensive coordinator? This is something that is much easier to see happening. The offense has been horrendous. They have scored four touchdowns in their last five games. Think about that. In this era of offense, the Jets have reached the end zone four times in five games and not at all in the past two games.

The offensive struggles are not all on LaFleur. There have been injuries along the offensive line. Losing Breece Hall in October was an absolute killer. There still is limited talent at the skill positions. And, of course, there is the quarterback play.

But should LaFleur take some of the blame for Wilson’s struggles? Here is where things can get interesting in an organization. If Johnson goes looking for answers after this season on why Wilson was terrible in his second season, Douglas is not going to say he screwed up the pick. Does he point at the coaching staff for failing to develop Wilson properly? Does that end up costing LaFleur his job?

It will be interesting to see how all of this unfolds. Saleh surely does not want to fire LaFleur, who he is very close with. Saleh can also make the case to Johnson that this won’t be an attractive job. Any offensive coordinator candidate is going to view Saleh as entering a critical 2023 season that could result in him getting fired if he does not make the playoffs. That is not great job security. There is also the QB situation. The Jets don’t have one. When they would be interviewing candidates in January, they may have a plan to add one in free agency but that is not a sure thing. The job would come with a lot of risk.

LaFleur is definitely on the hot seat, but will he get burned?

3. One of the mysteries of this season for me is what happened to running back Michael Carter. I expected big things from him this season and he has not produced at all.

Carter had a nice rookie season last year with 639 rushing yards and four touchdowns along with 325 receiving yards. The Jets drafted Hall and thought that he and Carter would be a 1-2 punch this season. But Carter only has 398 rushing yards and three touchdowns and 287 receiving yards. The Jets have shown no confidence in him. Instead of making him the featured back after Hall was injured, they traded for James Robinson, then gave Zonovan Knight and Ty Johnson bigger roles.

I’m not sure what happened with Carter but he is one player I expected to have a bigger role in this offense.

4. It got lost in the defeat but cornerbacks Sauce Gardner and D.J. Reed were outstanding again. Seahawks receivers D.K. Metcalf (one catch, 3 yards) and Tyler Lockett (two catches, 15 yards) were non-factors in the game. The problem for the Jets came in the middle of the field where the Seahawks attacked them with tight ends and throws to the running backs. It’s amazing that the Jets held those two receivers to three combined catches and still gave up big yards to the Seahawks. 

The Jets made six trips into Seahawks territory and only came away with two field goals. It’s hard to win games like that.

RB Ty Johnson got 33 snaps on offense, the most of any running back. That was a changeup by the Jets coaching staff. Johnson has been used sparingly this season.

There were not a lot of candidates in this game but tight end Tyler Conklin had a nice game. He had six catches on six targets for 80 yards and had the biggest play of the game for the Jets when he took a third-down pass 30 yards in the third quarter.