What does success look like for the 2026 New York Jets?It’s a question that’s been posed to anyone associated with this team throughout the summer. For those in the building, the general answer is, simply, competence. There’s not a win or playoff mandate for Aaron Glenn (though it would be difficult to survive another three-win season). This team needs to show a baseline level of competence on both the coaching and player sides, improve significantly on defense (especially with Glenn taking over play-calling), and actually compete from beginning to end.The 2025 season was an embarrassment. The Jets can’t be an embarrassment again.Glenn was asked about what success looks like on Tuesday and he said, simply: “Obviously winning. Winning, I mean hands down. Effort, discipline.”The evolution of the Jets' Demario DavisDan Pompei and Johnny SweetWide receiver Garrett Wilson was a little more bold when answering the same question: “The playoffs. No doubt about it, man. Nothing else … it’s very realistic. I think it should happen. It’s our job to go play ball and do it. That’s how I feel about it.”How do the Jets go about meeting those goals — showing improvement across the board, winning more games and, if Wilson is right, making the playoffs?A lot has to go right. Some things that didn’t happen last year need to happen this year. The Jets’ ability to go on any surprise run to the playoffs (or, frankly, even just appear as part of an “in the hunt” graphic in December) is something of a house of cards. These are likely just some of the things that have to go right for the Jets to achieve their dreams:1. The average version of Geno SmithBy most metrics, Smith was one of the worst starting quarterbacks in the NFL last season. He led the league in interceptions (17) and only won two of his 15 starts. He had a hand in those struggles, but it would also be fair to point out the mess around him: one of the NFL’s worst offensive lines and receiving corps, and a play-calling mess with the offensive coordinator fired midseason.The Athletic’s Austin Mock created a new quarterback stat — QB Index — to quantify quarterback performance by factoring in a variety of things. As he writes in the explainer, QBI “strips away the contributions from a quarterback’s 10 offensive teammates and credits only what the quarterback provides on a per-play basis.”To that end, Smith ranked 32nd of 37 qualifying quarterbacks in QBI last season.If the Jets are going to find any level of success in 2026, they’ll need Smith to play closer to the 2024 version of himself with the Seahawks, when he ranked 19th of 39 QBs at QBI, per Mock, which drops him into the “average” bucket. That year, Smith passed for 4,320 yards (which would be a Jets record), 21 touchdowns, 15 interceptions and completed 70.4 percent of his passes.Simply, the Jets need Smith to be average. They haven’t had many seasons with average quarterback play.