For the second consecutive year, ESPN's Joe Buck and Troy Aikman will begin their Week 1 broadcasting slate with a Jets game. Buck, who called Xavier Gipson's overtime walk-off punt return score against the Bills last September, not only likes the Jets-49ers Monday night matchup, but he is also bullish on the Green & White's prospects this season.
"It's a great matchup," he said during an appearance on "The Official Jets Podcast." "Everything's built for the Jets. We always say this team is built to win now. To me, this Jets team is built to win right now. Like now. It's not like a year, two years with the guys they brought in on the offensive line, with Aaron [Rodgers] being 40 years old, he's going to be 41 later in the year.
"But with the young talent like Garrett Wilson and Sauce Gardner and everybody else, this team has a chance to obviously snap the whole postseason drought but make some noise in the AFC. And then they're taking on the 49ers [team] that I still think has to be the team to beat in the NFC. They were within a whisker of winning the whole thing in the Super Bowl and there's no reason why if they're healthy they can't be right back there again this year."
The Jets will be featured in seven standalone games this season and will make a second appearance on "Monday Night Football" when they host the Bills on Oct. 14. After finishing 7-10 last season, the Jets' hopes have been buoyed by the return of Rodgers plus several notable offensive line additions.
"It's too big of a market, it's too proud of a franchise and that's why you make a deal to go out and get Aaron Rodgers," Buck said. "And that's why you go all in for 2024. Everybody's tired of talking about it, I'm sure the league is dying for the Jets to fulfill everybody's expectations. They were the toast of the schedule a year ago and they're on there a lot again. We have another game with the Jets at home against Buffalo pretty early in the season. It's another year where the NFL is betting on the Jets, the networks are betting on the Jets, and I fully expect them to be a playoff team. And I do believe in that old, hey once you get in – anything can happen. I expect big things from them this year."
Buck, who believes the AFC East is there for the taking, is impressed with the Jets' young trio of RB Breece Hall, Wilson and Gardner.
"I think it says it all for a guy like Breece Hall to be a top-10 pick in just about every NFL fantasy draft," Buck said. "He was in mine –I didn't get him. I wanted to get him, but he's a top-10 pick across the board, so that tells you what the league thinks of him, that tells you what the experts think of him. Garrett Wilson is everything you could ever want in a superstar wide receiver. I think he's got obviously all the tools but what a great attitude, what a great young man. And getting a chance to meet him last year going into that game one, he walked out of our meeting room, and it was like, 'woah, that guy is just different.' And Sauce Gardner is just made to be a star."
After handling the play-by-play of Leonard Floyd's sack of Rodgers last year that resulted in an Achilles tendon tear for the Jets QB, Buck believes the Jets' fate will rest on the health of their star QB and his offensive line.
"You have to keep those guys healthy," he said. "I think health up front on that offensive line while everybody is focused on the guy taking the snap in Aaron Rodgers, health up front is paramount. And if they have it, then I think they have a shot to really make some trouble in the AFC."
