Jets Edge Jermaine Johnson: 'In Terms of My Movement, My Speed, My Endurance' ... 'Everything Was There'

The Jets' No. 11, edge Jermaine Johnson, says he's ready to "turn it up to 11" after he returned to the MetLife Stadium turf after missing most of last season after tearing an Achilles tendon in Week 2.

After a long offseason spent rehabbing and preparing to show his value to a new group of coaches, Johnson put in a strong performance in last week's opener against Pittsburgh and has now set his sights on Sunday's encounter with Buffalo QB Josh Allen and the visiting Bills. And he knows what's going to be expected of him.

"Running, I got to run," Johnson said. "Like I was talking to Quinn [DT Quinnen Williams], we just have to run to the ball, overly, extra. If it's a bomb down the field, we run 80 yards.

"Because we just got to, we got to condition ourselves both endurance and muscle endurance. We just got to run, run, run. Because we know who's back there at quarterback. We know he likes to run, and we got to track him down. So that's just one thing for me, is just making sure that I can just keep going. I'm already kind of known as a motor guy, so I just like to build on that, make sure I'm ready to go and chase him down."

Chasing down Allen has become a preoccupation not only for the Jets, who face the five-time defending AFC East champion twice each season, but for every team the Bills face -- witness Sunday night's frantic comeback engineered by the reigning NFL MVP that vanquished the Ravens on the wings of a 22-point fourth quarter.

Against Pittsburgh last week, Johnson was on the field for 50 (89%) of the 56 defensive plays and had 3 tackles. Johnson, 24, one of the Jets' three first-round selections (No. 26 overall) in the 2022 NFL Draft, put together a stellar 2023 season. He played in all 17 games, made 55 tackles (11 TFL), 7.5 sacks and 7 passes broken up. According to Pro Football Focus, Johnson scored highly among 146 edge players with 100-plus snaps, with an 83.0 overall grade (18th) and 73.7 pass rush grade (39th).

Yet, all the best intentions of returning better than ever after a serious injury are never automatic or guaranteed.

"I thought Jermaine did a tremendous job being out for a while," defensive coordinator Steve Wilks said Thursday morning. "You're always a little leery when a guy comes back and making sure that he doesn't have too many reps, but it's like he never missed a beat, so I was excited to see him as well."

During his chat with team reporter Caroline Hendershot late Wednesday, Johnson got a little playful with a voice in the background that was trying to put him off his train of thought.

"Bro, be quiet. Bro. He'd be a pro. He'd be a professional. All right, next time, next time Quinn, next time Quinn goes out there, I make a lot of loud noises," Johnson said, with a laugh.

Then, all joking aside, he reflected on his first game back for the Green & White in nearly a year.

"It felt good, it felt good," he said. "I was excited that I felt as good as I did playing 50 plays or so, that was important to me. Obviously, I'm a guy that doesn't like excuses. I don't care if I'm coming off a big injury, I felt like I should have been more of an impact. There's a couple of rushes that I feel like I should have bent more around the edge, especially with who the quarterback [41-year-old Aaron Rodgers] was. We know he can't move around that much anymore, so I feel like could have capitalized on covering those rushes.

"But in terms of my movement, my speed, my endurance, I felt like everything was there. So I'm excited this week to move forward with that step of confidence."