Notre Dame has only played one game in Met Life Stadium this season, but in that one outing, they managed to score more touchdowns than the New York Giants and Jets have combined to score in the same stadium all season long in seven games. The Irish found the endzone seven times on Saturday against #24 Navy. The Giants and Jets have combined for just six touchdowns between them in their seven contests inside the friendly confides of their shared home stadium.
Notre Dame’s offense looked about as good as we’ve seen it this season against the Midshipmen en route to their seven-touchdown performance and 51-14 victory. Sure, they were aided by some generous turnovers from Navy, who lost five fumbles on the day. Still, the offense was both explosive and efficient with all of their opportunities other than their third drive of the game, which ended in a missed field goal. One of the seven touchdowns they scored also came on a fumble recovery in the end-zone, but the offense was still 5 of 6 in the redzone on the day and scored two touchdowns from 35+ yards out.
On the other hand, the Giants and Jets have been the model for offensive inefficiency this season. The Giants’s $40m Daniel Jones experiment is going about as poorly as everyone outside of the Giants front office expected it to go. For the Jets, the Aaron Rodgers experience has not been anything close to what the New York media hype machine said it would be. Even after the Jets traded for Rodgers’s old battery mate in Green Bay, Davante Adams, their offense still can’t get anything going. Scoring six total touchdowns between two teams in 7 combined games means they are scoring less than a touchdown a game. That’s almost indescribably bad for the modern-day NFL.
On the other hand, Notre Dame has seen its offense steadily improve throughout the season, and it appears it’s still getting better. Riley Leonard continues to look more and more comfortable running the Irish offense after another two-touchdown passing performances against Navy. After adding his 11th rushing touchdown of the season, he’s up to 19 total touchdowns this season.
The Irish offense is also getting healthy for the stretch run, with Jordan Faison, Mitchell Evans, and Billy Schrauth all rounding back into form heading into Notre Dame’s bye week this weekend.
How much better the offense can get in the next four games could ultimately determine how far this team goes in 2024. The offense we’ve seen the last few weeks is not the same offense we saw early this season in the loss to NIU or even the one that struggled at home against Miami of Ohio. That said, it also won’t be confused with the Greatest Show on Turf anytime soon. Still, the progress being shown each week by the Irish right now has to be encouraging to the Irish staff as they push for the playoffs.
Giants and Jets fans would do anything to see the kind of offensive improvement Notre Dame’s displayed with a new quarterback in a new offensive system this year. Daniel Jones, however, appears to be regressing in his sixth season as the start quarterback for the Giants and now has a 1-15 record in primetime games in that stretch. Aaron Rodgers looks a lot like a quarterback on the decline in the final stage of his career as the Jets fall further and further outside of playoff contention at 2-6 despite all of the transactions they’ve made to be a contender.
Notre Dame fans can take solace in knowing that even when the Irish offense frustrates them, at least they aren’t as bad as the Giants or Jets. Unless you’re a fan of either of those teams, then you’re just out of luck. Go Birds 😉
Yeah, well I’m a NY Giants fan and I’m done with Daniel Jones. Early on I thought he had potential. If he just had a good O-Line, and some good weapons maybe he could do some good. He does remind me a bit of Ely Manning in some ways. But I’m done. He’s regressed since getting his big contract extension. The Giants have just made one bad decision after another and at this point I’m thinking it will be years before we are contenders again. It’s a shame because the Giants defense is pretty good. They make good stops but the offense is just totally inept and I’ve been a big believer if the offense doesn’t do squat, eventually the defense is going to get demoralized. I’ve seen it happen to the Irish when our offense sucked, and the Giants. Why keep getting your butt kicked if the other side isn’t taking advantage?
I’m also a Phillies fan. ‘Nuff said their I think >:( . And a Pittsburgh Penguins fan (a team that is still in denial that it’s time to do a top to bottom rebuild, but I digress).
The only thing I got going is I’m a Boston Celtics fan and they are favored to repeat as National Champions, so it’s not all bad.
Here’s hoping the Irish shock the world (and admittedly myself) and win a NC in football. I’d love to see it in men’s basketball but unfortunately it seems ND is back to being basement dwellers in men’s basketball again. It still kills me that I truly believe back in 2014 I think it was if they had beaten UK I truly believe we may have been on our way to winning our first NC in men’s basketball.
Anyway….Go Irish!