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Jets' Jermaine Johnson never satisfied despite strong season

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Jets' Jermaine Johnson never satisfied despite strong season


Jermaine Johnson had his first NFL interception, touchdown return and fumble recovery in his last game, but that night he was “mad.”

He feels that way often, whether it’s because the Jets lost or he believes he could have done more.

Johnson thinks he’s shown that he’s “a dominant player” in his second NFL season, but he’s not satisfied. He never is. Ever.

“It’s a blessing and a curse because sometimes I’m just like mad,” Johnson told Newsday. “I kind of sit down and I’m like, ‘Nah.’ I’m never really satisfied.”

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The Jets (6-10) will close out the season Sunday in New England, looking to snap a 15-game losing streak against the Patriots in what could be Bill Belichick’s final game as their coach.

The Jets’ defense wants to end the right way after allowing Joe Flacco to pass for 309 yards and three scores in a 34-20 loss in Cleveland on Dec. 28.

Johnson had a good game, though.

New York Jets defensive tackle Quinnen Williams (95) New York Jets linebacker Bryce Huff (47) New York Jets linebacker Quincy Williams (56) celebrate a sack during the second half the Houston Texans at the NY Jets on December 10, 2023 Credit: Lee S. Weissman/Lee S. Weissman

He deflected a Flacco pass into the air, picked it off and ran 37 yards for a touchdown. Later, he scooped up a fumble and took it in for the TD, but the play was ruled dead.

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Johnson called the pick “cool,” but he was hot.

“I was mad,” he said. “It was a good play. It was a cool play. It was probably one of the best I’ve made. We didn’t win. I still didn’t feel like I had enough of a presence in the game.”

After playing 312 snaps as a rookie, Johnson has established himself as a disruptive piece who could play alongside All-Pro tackle Quinnen Williams for a long time.

Johnson’s 714 snaps this year are second on the line to Williams. Johnson is second on the Jets with 6.5 sacks and has seven passes defended.

“He’s having an amazing year,” Williams said. “Just to see the growth from last year to this year . . . You can see the game-changing plays that he makes week in and week out. Not just last week, but this whole season.

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“I’m super-excited to be able to play with him in the future for years to come. We definitely can be one of the best dynamic duos in the league for years to come.”

The Jets envisioned Johnson being a foundation player when they traded up to grab him with the 26th pick in 2022. He spent last year in the shadows of some of the Jets’ other picks: Sauce Gardner, Garrett Wilson and Breece Hall.

Johnson stayed hungry, worked hard on his body and game in the offseason and proved he’s just as important to the Jets.

“Jermaine has been awesome, and I feel bad for him because he kind of gets lost in the shuffle of the [three] picks that we had that get celebrated,” Jets coach Robert Saleh said. “But Jermaine is playing at a Pro Bowl level. He’s disruptive. He changes games. He gets after the quarterback. He’s awesome in the run game, playing through so much pain right now.

“It’s so cool just to watch a young man who put in the work that he needed to in the offseason to reap the rewards of his labor. He’s doing a great job, grossly underrated in my opinion, but he’s going to be good for a long time.”

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The defensive coaches believe in letting a rookie watch and learn and then unleashing him when he’s better acclimated. They expect edge rusher Will McDonald, their first-round pick this year who has played only 167 snaps, to follow a similar path.

Defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich noted Johnson’s “huge jump” and said it’s “the same jump I anticipate Will taking next year.”

Ulbrich said Johnson “is rare” because he can do so much from being “a violent edge-setter” to having “great speed and bend and an arsenal of moves — and that is his superpower.”

Johnson also has shown he’s good against the run.

After Johnson’s rookie season, he watched a lot of film of himself and said he didn’t recognize that person. That fueled his offseason work. He said he recognizes himself when he watches tape now — but, you know.

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“I’m still not satisfied, just never really satisfied,” Johnson said. “The tape looks pretty good. I like to win. I like to be an undisputable dominant force and a great teammate. I’m just looking to bring that into the next year and making sure that that’s true.”

Johnson doesn’t know what it will take for him to truly be satisfied.

“I have no idea,” he said. “I just know that when I hit the peak of one mountain, it always ends up to be the base of another. That’s how I’ve always been wired. I can’t tell you what will change that.”

The only thing Johnson knows is that he’ll never stop wanting more.

“My thing is hard work must get done,” he said. “Hard work mixed with the talent that God gives me and mixed with the great teammates and people I have around me should be a recipe for good things.”

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JETS-PATRIOTS GAMEDAY

Line: Patriots by 1.5; O/U 30.5

TV: Fox (Chris Myers, Robert Smith, Jen Hale)

Radio: ESPN (98.7) (Bob Wischusen, Marty Lyons); SiriusXM 380.

All-time series: Patriots lead, 74-54-1 (Patriots have won 15 in a row).

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Last meeting: Sept. 24, 2023,

Patriots 15 (at) Jets 10.

KEY INJURIES

Jets: OUT: QB Aaron Rodgers (Achilles), QB Zach Wilson (concussion), TE Jeremy Ruckert (concussion), OL Jake Hanson (concussion). DOUTBFUL: G Wes Schweitzer (calf).

Patriots: OUT: T Trent Brown (illness), TE Hunter Henry (knee): QUESTIONABLE: S Jalen Mills (ankle), WR Tyquan Thornton (ankle); DL Christan Barmore (knee).

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BYE STREAK, BYE BILL?

The Jets, losers of 15 straight games against the Patriots, hope to accomplish two things in what could be Bill Belichick’s final game coaching New England.

“It would be nice to send him out with a loss and end the streak all in one,” tight end Tyler Conklin said.

Both have been talked about among the Jets’ players. They’re tired of hearing about and being asked about the streak. The Jets’ last win over New England came on Dec. 27, 2015. It’s the longest active one in the NFL. “We got to fix it,” C.J. Mosley said. “It’s a great time to start.”

CLIMBING THE CHARTS

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Garrett Wilson is seven catches shy of 100. Brandon Marshall is the only Jet to record 100 receptions in a season. He had 109 in 2015.

Breece Hall needs 105 scrimmage yards to become the fifth Jet with 1,500 yards in a season. Curtis Martin did it six times and Freeman McNeil, Thomas Jones and Marshall once.

With one catch, Conklin will become the third Jets tight end with 60 receptions in a season. Mickey Shuler did it four times and Dustin Keller once.

(All the previous marks were done in a 16-game season).

NEW QBs

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Trevor Siemian will be the eighth Jets quarterback to start against the Patriots since the streak began. Bailey Zappe will be New England’s fourth.

The other Jets’ starters were Zach Wilson, Joe Flacco, Sam Darnold, Luke Falk, Josh McCown, Ryan Fitzpatrick and Bryce Petty. The Patriots? Mac Jones, Cam Newton and Tom Brady.

QUOTABLE

“It’s a good opportunity to go out there, play a clean football game, start the year and end the season on a win — and obviously end this damn streak.”

— Tyler Conklin

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NUMBER, PLEASE

23-2. Bill Belichick’s record against the Jets since they beat New England in the 2010 AFC divisional round. It was the last time the Jets reached the playoffs

— AL IANNAZZONE



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Cleveland, OH

Max McEnelly Lands High-Profile Matchup With Bo Nickal at RAF

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Max McEnelly Lands High-Profile Matchup With Bo Nickal at RAF


University of Minnesota star wrestler Max McEnelly won the 2026 NCAA national championship at 184 pounds, and he’s now set to face superstar Bo Nickal at Real American Freestyle (RAF) 12 on August 22nd in Cleveland, Ohio.

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McEnelly is preparing for his redshirt junior season with the Gophers, and Nickal is 9-1 as a professional mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter, following a storied collegiate wrestling career at Penn State. Their freestyle wrestling match will be contested at 215 pounds.

RAF is an American freestyle wrestling promotion that was founded by Chad Bronstein, Terri Francis, and Hulk Hogan in 2025. The August 22nd show at Rocket Arena will be the one-year anniversary of the promotion. The fights will be broadcast on FOX Nation.

Nickal most recently competed at UFC Freedom 250 at the White House, where he defeated Kyle Daukas via first-round finish. He’s now 6-1 in his UFC career. His match against McEnelly will be his second under RAF. He defeated Jacob Cardenas via decision at the promotion’s first show last summer.

Nickal is 6-foot-1, and he wrestled at 197 pounds at Penn State. He competes at the 185-pound middweight division in the UFC, so he might have a slight size advantage over McEnelly, who’s 5-foot-10. The event will be a high-profile opportunity, as McEnelly continues to establish himself as one of the best pound-for-pound wrestlers in the country.

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Cleveland, OH

Cleveland man dies after fatal shooting at gas station

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Cleveland man dies after fatal shooting at gas station


CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) – A man was killed Friday after being shot at a gas station on the city’s East side.

Cleveland police said they responded to the Sunoco in the 3300 block of E. 93rd St. around 8:30 p.m.

According to police, officers were in the area when they heard gunshots.

When officers arrived at the gas station, they found the victim with gunshot wounds.

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Officers immediately began to provide first aid until EMS arrived and transported him to University Hospitals.

Carl Formby, 49, died from his injuries at the hospital.

Officers said they found two firearms and several casings at the scene.

The Cleveland Police Homicide Unit is investigating the incident.

Copyright 2026 WOIO. All rights reserved.

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Cleveland Browns News and Rumors June 22, 2026: Not Just Org Chart Noise

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Cleveland Browns News and Rumors June 22, 2026: Not Just Org Chart Noise


CLEVELAND, Ohio (TheOBR.com) Good morning, Cleveland Browns fans!

There are mornings when I sit down at this keyboard, look at the Browns quarterback discourse, and wonder whether I should have gone into a more stable line of work. Such as selling timeshares from inside an office that has been lit on fire. Because here we are in late June, with no pads, no preseason games, no live pass rush, and apparently everyone from television personalities to team-adjacent announcers to webdorks like me has solved the Browns quarterback battle. That’s 90% of the news items out there this morning.

But I don’t care, and look on that endless speculative churning as simply being noise at this point.

One story that matters this morning is Andrew Healy leaving Cleveland for Minnesota, which I wrote about several days ago. He’s joining the Vikings as an assistant general manager.

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If your first reaction was, “Okay, front-office guy changes jobs, wake me when someone throws a slant,” I get it. Executives mostly become famous when something goes wrong, which is a cruel system, but, hey, I didn’t design the planet. I just live here.

But Healy’s departure is a real loss. Alec Lewis’ Athletic reporting had two quotes that should get your attention. Browns offensive analyst Dom Borsani called Healy “a little bit like a unicorn,” because he combined research background and technical aptitude with a traditional scouting lens and an understanding of coaching schemes. Former Browns senior software developer Zach Zelinsky, now with the Arizona Diamondbacks, called him “probably the smartest guy I’ve worked with in sports.”

That’s not normal praise. That’s not “great teammate, first guy in, last guy out” boilerplate. This is people inside the machine saying the Browns just lost one of the people who helped connect the spreadsheet world to the football world. And that matters because the modern NFL is not analytics versus scouting anymore — or at least it shouldn’t be. The good organizations are the ones where the numbers people understand what the scouts are seeing, the scouts trust that the numbers can challenge their assumptions, and the coaches don’t throw the laptop into Lake Erie.

Healy’s Sloan Sports Analytics bio says that, for the last five years, he “led the integration of data and advanced insights into all parts of football operations.” It also says he started with the Browns in 2016 as Senior Player Personnel Strategist, helping to develop methods for valuing players, making game decisions, and evaluating draft assets. Before that, he created projection systems for Football Outsiders, and before that, he was an economics professor with a Ph.D. from MIT. So, yes, he is smarter than your humble webdork. This is not a high bar, but still.

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So, naturally, I was worried about this and did what I always do when I’m looking for common-sense answers: I talked to Lane. He let me know what he “was told all the systems have been in place, with others handling the process. It doesn’t feel like they are overly concerned with his departure. As they have told me previously, you never like to lose assets, but you plan accordingly.”

The Browns still have Andrew Berry. They still have people in the research department. This is not a one-man shop collapsing because the smartest guy took his stapler to Minneapolis. But when you lose Paul DePodesta to the Rockies and Healy to the Vikings in the same general era, you lose institutional memory, decision-making frameworks, and the people who knew why certain models were built the way they were. Don’t expect the loss of the two to indicate much about how the Browns use analytics – it hasn’t fallen out of favor or suddenly joined Maurice Carthon’s playbook in the annals of football history.

This is the type of stuff fans don’t see until two years later, when the draft board feels different, the fourth-down decisions get twitchy, or the team suddenly stops finding value in places it used to find value. Maybe Berry replaces that brainpower cleanly. Maybe the remaining group steps forward. Maybe the Browns are fine. But losing a “unicorn” from a front office is like losing a left guard: nobody talks about it until the pressure starts coming up the middle.

Have a good one! GO BROWNS!

Newswire Bloviation Archive

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OBR GOODIES

OBR ARTICLES

  • Cleveland Browns News and Rumors June 21, 2026: Fighting for Football Lives
  • Rookie Year Expectations For The Cleveland Browns 2026 Draft Picks – Day Two

FROM THE FORUMS

INSIDER DISCUSSION (VIP)

  • Cleveland Browns News and Rumors June 21, 2026: Fighting for Football Lives

THE WATERCOOLER

THE LIFT

Positive news from the world of sports and beyond…

Space.com reports that scientists are drawing up a research blueprint to examine whether warming Mars is actually feasible — not because anyone should be selling lakefront property in Olympus Mons by Thursday, but because the work could help humanity understand what sustainable habitats beyond Earth would require. University of Chicago geophysical scientist Edwin Kite told Space.com, “We do not yet know enough to create a biosphere from scratch,” which is both humbling and oddly comforting. We can’t even get everyone to agree on the Browns quarterback depth chart, but sure, let’s keep the option open for Mars.

WRAPPING UP

When not trying to identify the precise moment quarterback analysis becomes interpretive dance, Barry McBride is the Publisher and Founder of the OBR and bloviates this nonsense every morning. You can follow him on Twitter @barrymcbride or write him at barry@theobr.com if you are so compelled.

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Let Barry know what you think of the Daily Bloviation! CLICK HERE!

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