The image below is known as the rabbit-duck illusion. Depending on your perception, you may see a rabbit or a duck.
The illusion first appeared in a German magazine in the 1890s, and it has been dissected by scholars in many academic fields ever since.
Fans of the television series How I Met Your Mother the illusion can be recognized as it played an important role in an episode that aired in 2010.
It speaks to something basic. Our perceptions of a person, event, or place can change even if little has changed on the surface about that entity.
It’s hard to believe, but there was a brief window in 2024 when the Aaron Rodgers-Robert Saleh Jets seemed to be on the right track. The team lost its opener in San Francisco to the 49ers, a game few expected them to win. The Jets followed that loss up with back-to-back wins against the Titans and Patriots.
The team was 2-1 heading into Week 4. Of course that year no one thought Tennessee or New England would be so good, but the Jets were doing what great teams do. They took care of the business against hostile opponents.
Week 4 arrives. The Jets lose to a Denver Broncos team they should beat. The following week, they lost in London to the Vikings, and their head coach was fired. Next was the loss to the Buffalo Bills. The team made a desperation trade for Davante Adams, but that didn’t help the Jets avoid losses to the Steelers and then the next week to the same Patriots team.
After the third week of that season, it’s perfectly reasonable to look at the Jets’ 2-1 record and feel like they take care of business against bad teams. A few weeks later, those games look different. The Titans were on their way to getting the number one overall pick, but they passed the Jets in Week 2. The Jets needed a late goal line stand to get a win against a scary team. The Week 3 win over the Patriots was more decisive, but New England was downright awful in 2024. However, they were able to avenge their loss to the Jets a few weeks later.
It quickly became clear that the 2024 Jets were also a very bad team. They would win just three games the rest of the way, one against a Jaguars team that also got a top five pick. The other was against a Dolphins team in Week 18 that was playing its backup quarterback.
I’m not sure which of the duck or rabbit represents a great team in its way and which represents a really bad team with a poor early season schedule, but it’s fair to say that perceptions about that Jets team have changed.
An NFL season is a fragile thing. A team can appear to be on a good trajectory and then completely collapse and have a disastrous season.
The 2026 Jets aren’t playing spectacular football heading into Week 4, but they more or less look like a professional team, which is something to appreciate. The record may only be 1-2, but this team looks superior to your recent Jets club. They are coming off a Week 3 game where they went toe-to-toe with a quality Lions team.
Against a backup quarterback in Chicago, I don’t think a win is an unreasonable ask. At the very least, the Jets should continue to look professional.
Instead, fans were treated to a huge loss. The Jets were terrible in all phases of the game.
In recent years this group has had a strange way of being a footnote like this.
This is the kind of game that makes you question whether the progress of the first four weeks is really progress.
Maybe that win over the Tennessee Titans that seems promising at the moment is just this team’s version of the Week 3 2024 game against New England, catching a formidable opponent at the perfect moment in the schedule.
Blowing a 10-point lead on Green Bay in the fourth quarter in a game they otherwise dominated could probably be excused because the Jets played at a high level.
Lose a back-to-back road game with the Lions because Detroit makes another play? It happens.
But when you combine these results with that terrible effort in Chicago, you get a 1-3 record. You could be forgiven for wondering how realistic the first trimester’s development really is.
When I say progress, I’m not talking about just being better than the Brady Cook Jets last five games from 2025. That might legitimately be the worst five games of football played by a team in NFL history. The Jets could have literally done anything this offseason and improved from there.
The question is whether the Jets are on track to become a truly great team within the next year or two. You can be forgiven if your answer today is different from what it was yesterday.
A critical area where fan perception can change is in the team’s head coach. It’s not exactly a secret that Aaron Glenn has struggled in his year and change in charge of the Jets. His 4-17 record is a clear enough indicator of that.
Of course, Glenn inherited a real nightmare situation, one few coaches could have successfully navigated at this point.
There’s nothing wrong with trying to talk yourself into being a head coach. Glenn is a legendary player for this franchise. Hoping for the best for him was the right thing to do.
So we can point to the dire state of the team when he took the job. We can talk about focusing on the long term. We can try to absolve Glenn of guilt.
But when you face the Bears, you face Ben Johnson. There is a clear demonstration of what a truly great head coach can do. Of course, Johnson took a better situation in Chicago. However, it’s not all about his talent. In a six-day stretch he’s managed just two wins with two different quarterbacks playing well. None of those quarterbacks are his starters.
Compare that to Glenn. Ask what Glenn is doing to make this team better. Your perception of Glenn slowly progressing through this team’s development could change faster than you can say, “Rabbit to duck.”
The best thing about the NFL is that there is a game next week. A victory against the Browns could change perceptions back.
But for one week, the Jets have left many of us wondering if the early stages of 2026 represent a significant step forward. They got that with this performance.