u/viewless25

##Defending the Draft 2026: New York Jets

by /u/Viewless25

###2025 Season Results: 3-14 (4th in AFC East) Missed Playoffs

Introduction: 2025 ushered in a new era for the New York Jets following the explosive end of the era overseen by GM Joe Douglas, HC Robert Saleh/Jeff Ulbrich, and QB Aaron Rodgers. With those leaders out, the Jets hired long time Denver Broncos scout Darren Mougey to be their new GM and Detroit Lions DC (and former Jets Safety) Aaron Glenn to be the Head Coach. They quickly built up a coaching staff of first time playcaller Tanner Engstrand at Offensive Coordinator, former NFL Head Coach Steve Wilks as Defensive Coordinator, and Chris Banjo, with just two seasons separating his last season as an NFL player, as Special Teams coordinator. Calling the expectations of this season “muted” would be like calling investors in Spirit Airlines, “bearish”. The team was mired in what, thanks to the Buffalo Sabres, now stands alone as North America’s longest playoff drought. Organizationally, this was a transition in leadership structure. The Joe Douglas era began with the hope of the Jets returning to a General Manager-led football operations department where the Head Coach reports to the GM. But when that General Manager missed on the quarterback he drafted #2 overall, while still having garnered some goodwill from his successful 2022 NFL draft, they ended up giving the keys to the organization to Aaron Rodgers to 2023. As of last year, I’m done discussing Aaron Rodgers in this lifetime, so let’s just agree to say that didn’t end well. The Jets answer to this was to focus their hiring efforts on the Head Coach. They went with the well-respected Lions DC Aaron Glenn. He was loved by his players and many Detroit Lions fans, even if his defenses weren’t always top 5 during his tenure there.

They hired Glenn prior to hiring their new General Manager, and it’s speculated that Glenn might’ve influenced the GM hiring process. It seemed the Jets were zeroing in on Commanders Assistant GM Lance Newmark whose other qualifications include having been on the Lions with Glenn. But after some further deliberation the Jets settled on Broncos Assistant GM Darren Mougey, whose qualifications include being very tall. He had been with the Broncos in some scouting capacity since 2012 and had been seen as a potential GM candidate for about 2-3 years now.

As GM, Mougey got to work moving on from Rodgers at QB, signing Fields to a hilariously expensive 2-year contract that resulted in him getting traded to the Chiefs, and making some medium sized revamps of the roster in free agency.

You can see my thoughts on his first draft at the time here. If you wanted an updated opinion, it goes like this: 1st and 2nd day of the draft: 👍Day 3 of the draft: 👎. Membou earned PFWA All Rookie honors at RT and TE Mason Taylor had respectable production for 13 games on a team with Brady Cook and Justin Fields at QB (44 receptions for 369 yards and 1 TD). But the Jets needed more out of WR Arian Smith for how bad this WR group was. The same goes for LB Kiko Mauigoa and EDGE Tyler Baron, whom they traded a future pick to trade up for.

Regardless of how I feel about the first offseason of the new regime, I think it was understood by most Jets fans that cleaning up the mess of the Douglas era was, yet again, a multi-year project. And so, we went into 2026 with tempered expectations.

###Season Recap: Instant Coffee

In Glenn’s first meetings with the New York Jets media, he came off as confident, ambitious, and a little bit contentious with the media. The Jets were looking to make him the face of the franchise and the man who defines the culture. At the 2025 NFL Combine, he said “We’re here to win now”, a turn of phrase that has never come back to haunt any NFL head coach, certainly not a Jets coach. This would be tough, because with Rodgers out, the Jets would try to be the ones to crack the Justin Fields puzzle. Many teams delude themselves into thinking they can unlock Fields’ potential, but it never works. But it might work for the Jets. In all sincerity, the Jets didn’t have much better options in terms of rebuilding at QB via free agency or the draft in 2025. He’s a boom or bust signing that has a ceiling as high as his floor is low. Even if he hits his low floor, you’ll still be drafting high enough to get your franchise QB. It’s not like there’s only going to be one starting caliber QB in this draft, right? But if you’re serious about “winning now” then maybe getting rid of Rodgers wasn’t the greatest idea.

But forget all of that. Because three weeks into the season after three humiliating losses, Aaron Glenn revealed that the Jets don’t actually want to win now. That would be impatient of Jets fans to expect their team be competitive. After all, it’s only been 15 years since their last playoff run; any other team’s fanbase in the NFL would happily wait that long! After the Jets 30-10 loss to the Bills that might as well have been a 70-3 loss, Aaron Glenn criticized Jets fans and the media as being part of an “Instant Coffee mentality”. He said:

> This is an instant coffee league. From the media to the fans, everybody expects when you just start, okay, we're going to the Super Bowl.

To which I and every other Jets fans responded: “Are you out of your fucking mind??”. There was not one Jet fan expecting the Jets to even get to .500, much less a Super Bowl appearance this year. This is a complete strawman by Aaron Glenn to try to make his critics look unreasonable for criticizing him over coughing up what should have been a motivating win over the Steelers, followed by getting obliterated by the Bills and Cowboys. His team was noncompetitive for almost all of year 1 and at multiple points, simply gave up on trying. To insinuate that people are mad at you for not making the Super Bowl is an implicit defense of what was a disgrace of a season. I don’t think I was being unreasonable or delusional for thinking the Jets could match their 2024 total of 5 wins (if you’re a Jets fan reading this, keep in mind that the other 31 fanbases in this league consider a 5-win season to be abysmal). I didn’t want this post to be a snark post or a rant post, but I need to use this as a chance to tear down this media narrative that Jets fans are “unreasonable” or “impatient”. They are the most patient fanbase in sports. We have waited 15 years for a playoff appearance and 55 years for a Championship appearance. We have fewer AFC East titles than the Indianapolis Colts, who have not been in this division for 20 years. I’m not saying that the Jets should have made the playoffs this year or even that Glenn should have been a 1 and done coach. But I don’t think we’re unreasonable for expecting more than 3 wins or 0 interceptions on the season and I spit in the eye of anyone who would tell me otherwise, Aaron Glenn especially.

I’m not going to bore you by explaining what went wrong. Everything pretty much went wrong. To Glenn’s credit, he and Mougey seemed to realize this halfway through. I think Glenn looked at the 2024 Jets and thought “Oh I could win 8 games with that team easily” and then halfway through realized he was an idiot. After a miserable 3-14 season that saw no positives other than finishing 1st in Special Teams DVOA and eeking out 3 last second wins that managed to get us just low enough in the draft order to miss out on Mendoza, the vibes in New York were at an all-time low. The Jets ended the season on a five-game losing streak in which they got outscored 270-54. They became the first NFL team to go a full season with 0 interceptions on defense. Glenn’s once comfortable seat started to heat up. Changes had to happen and they needed to happen fast.

###2026 Offseason: Holding onto the Rope

Glenn cleaned house. He wasted zero time firing Steve Wilks, which I agreed with but begs the question of why a proven failure of a DC was hired in the first place. But they had deeper problems than just the coordinator, they had a roster that went into the season with 2 or 3 stars but no real breath of starting talent. The Jets got in front of the problem by being quick to trade away some of the more valuable pieces they still had for draft capital. They dumped Michael Carter II, who was no longer a scheme fit. They traded Sauce Gardner for 2 first round picks and Adonai Mitchell. They traded Quinnen Williams to Dallas for a first and a second. I think they wanted to keep Sauce (they extended him before the season) but thought their defense was too awful to turn down two first rounders to keep a CB who doesn’t catch interceptions. I think Quinnen was already pushing to leave and I don’t blame him at all. This was his 7th season on the Jets and playing 7 seasons for the Jets ages you more than playing 20 seasons on the Patriots. By the way everything I’ve just told you actually happened during the regular season and not the offseason, but just know that for Jets fans, the offseason actually starts around mid-October. Glenn went into his first full offseason as head coach by telling the fans:

>For the fans, listen, it's going to be a tough road, we knew that, but, man, the thing is, we know exactly what we're doing. We have a plan. Just don't let go of the rope.

And then after spending three weeks into the offseason mulling it over, the Jets fired OC Tanner Engstrand after his first ever season as playcaller. I was shocked both by the timing and that they fired him. But when a rookie OC fails to turn Justin Fields or Brady Cook into 4,000 yard passers, you have to fire him. You have no choice. If it were a part of the “plan” I would’ve assumed they would have done it earlier so they can get a head start on replacing him. But nevertheless, let’s see what Aaron Glenn’s plan for the Jets is and try to determine whether or not we should let go of the rope. For the Jets’ replacement coordinators, they hired rookie DC Brian Duker off the Miami Dolphins and OC Frank Reich off the couch. The plan apparently is for the Jets to have Glenn be more hands on with the defense and to handle the playcalling for Defense while entrusting control of the Offense to Frank Reich. The Jets plan A was to hire Jim Leonhard as DC, but when that fell through, I think Glenn’s idea was to cheap out on DC so they could take that money to hire a veteran OC. I think Reich proved last year with Stanford that he really doesn’t have it as a HC anymore, but maybe he still might be a serviceable OC. He succeeded in Philadelphia as an OC, but that’s almost 10 years ago. I don’t know much about Brian Duker as he’s very inexperienced, but I think that’s by design so Glenn can treat him as a protégé while Glenn runs the defense and calls plays himself. This change at Defense involves a transition from a 4-3 defense to a 3-4 defense, more on that later.

###Trades

• NY Jets acquire LV Raiders QB Geno Smith and 7th Round Pick in exchange for 6th round pick

• NY Jets trade QB Justin Fields to the KC Chiefs for conditional 7th round pick (2027)

• NY Jets acquire S Minkah Fitzpatrick from the Miami Dolphins in exchange for a 7th round pick

• NY Jets trade DE Jermain Johnson to Tennessee Titans in exchange for DT T'Vondre Sweat.

I like all four of these trades. The Jets made two trades to make a necessary change at QB. They managed to get the absolutely bare minimum return to get rid of Justin Fields (albeit with $7MM in retained money) and bring in Geno for a late round pick swap. This is the Jets swapping out a high ceiling, low floor QB to a low ceiling high floor one. This is a necessary change for a coaching staff that absolutely needs to find a way to be Just Okay this year.

They also made two trades to align the defense better. They spend a 7th rounder to get Minkah Fitzpatrick. Fitz is on the back 9 of his career and isn’t the elite playmaker that he used to be, but I was still excited about this trade because I think the Jets will use him in a more traditional free safety role, whereas he got a lot more time in the box in recent years. This is a better fit for the Jets roster, where we’re hoping second year SS Malachi Moore can handle the box to free up Fitz deep.

The Jets traded former first round pick Jermaine Johnson, who had a disappointing return following his ruptured Achilles back in 2024. Some were speculating that Glenn/Wilks’ scheme was a bad fit for Johnson, who now returns to a defense coached by Robert Saleh. In return, the Jets got T’Vondre Sweat, a run stuffer who projects as the Jets starting Nose Tackle. I think this was a really clean Player for Player trade for both ends, since the Jets and Titans are switching between 3-4 and 4-3 defenses like ships passing in the night. Without giving up much capital, the Jets managed to stabilize at QB and round out their defense better.

###Free Agent Signings ##Free Agents Relinquished

Name	POS	Years	New Team
Alijah Vera-Tucker	OG	3	NE
John Simpson	OG	3	BAL
Quincy Williams	LB	2	CLE
Michael Clemons	DE	3	IND
Nick Folk	K	2	ATL
Tony Adams	FS	1	TEN
John Metchie	WR	1	CAR
Stone Smartt	TE	1	PHI
Tyrod Taylor	QB	2	GB
This was a mix of genuine losses and “don’t let the door hit you where the good Lord split ya.” Most concerningly was creating two new holes on the interior of the offensive line. The Jets feel good about Joe Tippmann as either a C or a RG, but AVT leaving meant that Josh Myers as starting C would be a long-term thing. John Simpson leaving created another hole at LG. Somehow, Michael Clemons’ agent managed to convince the Colts to give him a 3-year $17MM deal. Quincy Williams left after a disappointing year where he didn’t adjust to the new scheme as well as we’d have hoped. Probably the departure that will hurt the Jets the most this year is Kicker Nick Folk. It was nice to have him back after all these years, especially after placekicking costed us like 4 games in 2024. In theory, it hurts to lose Tyrod Taylor without any veteran backup QB on the roster, but his injury issues have made him not reliable as a backup.

Name	POS	Years	Old Team
Joseph Ossai	OLB	3	CIN
Demario Davis	ILB	2	NO
Kingsley Enagbare	DE	1	GB
Dane Belton	SS	1	NYG
Nashon Wright	CB	1	CHI
Andre Cisco	FS	1	NYJ
Max Mitchell	RT	1	NYJ
Chukwuma Okorafor	LT	1	NYJ
Andrew Beck	FB	1	NYJ
Mykal Walker	LB	1	NYJ
Xavier Newman	OG	1	NYJ
Cade York	K	1	NO
Kene Nwangwu	RB	1	NYJ
Dylan Parmer	OG	2	LV
David Onyemata	DT	1	ATL

The Jets didn’t make any impact re-signings this offseason. Hard to justify it given the result, but they did let some talent reach free agency. Most of the re-signings listed above are depth/special teams pieces.

In terms of new additions, the biggest splash was at Edge rusher where they picked up Joseph Ossai, a solid but-not-great pass rusher who brings more run stuffing than Clemons did while hopefully delivering less penalties. They brought back ILB Demario Davis for his third stint with the Jets. We got very little run stuffing production from our front-seven last year, so him and Sweat project to be a huge upgrade in the run game. The team made multiple moves at Safety, bringing back Cisco and adding Dane Belton to complement Fitzpatrick. The Jets Safety room already looks very different from the 2025 one, and it’s hard to imagine that not being at least a slight improvement. The most concerning addition in my opinion is Cade York. The Jets signed him off the Saints’ Practice Squad but he last kicked for Cincinnati and Washington in 2024 to the tune of 3/6 from 30-49 range. Kicker is the one position I feel confident saying the Jets are worse at this year right now. But maybe they’ll add someone else this summer.

The Jets also franchise tagged RB Breece Hall and are hoping to extend him by the end of the summer; but he hasn’t signed the tag or any extension yet. Breece has earned a slight reputation as a malcontent though he hasn’t ruled out signing an extension. I think this is because the way that the Jets left him out to dry to end the season last year. Every other starter like Mason Taylor and Garrett Wilson was put on IL and he was left to take the lumps with a bunch of future car salesmen. I think if he gets to camp and spends some time around his new teammates, he might feel better about staying. Before going into the picks, here’s a Positional Need rankings:

1. QB
2. WR
3. ILB
4. CB
5. IOL

I left QB off my positional needs ranking a year ago and now I have it as #1. I left it off because I felt that they were getting a mulligan coming in on a short offseason and the general expectation was to improve the culture and the roster. Given that they did none of that last year, are now in year 2, and have no plan at backup QB unlike last year, I have it as #1 now. I know the draft board didn’t break out in a favorable way, but you can only ride that excuse for so long. Still, the draft offered some ways to fix the other needs on this list, so let’s see how they did:

##Round 1, Pick 2 (#2 Overall) – David Bailey, EDGE Texas Tech

Year	Team	Tackles	Solo	Sacks	FF
2022	STAN	46	30	2.5	2
2023	STAN	34	22	5	0
2024	STAN	31	22	7	5
2025	TTU	52	32	14.5	3

The debate around the #2 overall pick for Jets fans was heavily centered around two players: Arvell Reese and David Bailey. I think this is a pretty interesting debate that shows a lot about how people philosophically approach the draft, especially at the very top of the draft. It asks a lot of questions that whom you align with will show a lot about how you think of the draft such as:

Are we drafting to fill holes in our roster or to build the most talented team we can?

Should we target younger, higher ceiling project players or older ones with more proven production who can make an immediate impact?

If we’ve been bad for so long, does it make sense to start swinging for the fences to hope for a game changing player? Or should we focus on getting on base with a solid player who has a higher chance of translating his game to the NFL?

I think whether you thought the Jets should have taken David Bailey or Arvell Reese and how you answer those questions are connected. But regardless of what Jets fans prefer (I’d say about 65% of Jets fans I talked to preferred Arvell Reese), the Jets took David Bailey #2 Overall.

David Bailey is a pure pass rusher. He had a 27.9% pass rush win rate his last year in Stanford in 2024. He also had a respectable 7 sacks and 5 forced fumbles that year. Texas Tech decided to bet heavily on David Bailey and gave him a whopping $3 Million NIL deal to transfer to Texas Tech. That’s a stunning amount, but the result was even more stunning: David Bailey led the nation in sacks (14.5) and played some of his best football in the 2025 Orange Bowl

You can see at 0:37 he shows off his edge speed for his last collegiate sack (he's easy to spot on tape because he wears no tape or gloves and minimal pads. he looks like a basketball player with a helmet). In that game he also batted down a pass on 4th and goal and showed off his lateral movement on the run game, which improved a lot during the course of the season. As a veteran, his pass rush game is very well developed. His spin move is effective, though not the deadliest you'll ever see. But he shows a veteran's awareness of how to attack the blocker and great finish on his sacks. Most of the room for him to grow is to be more reliable about how he approaches the run. He can get caught charging gaps and giving runningbacks a path to the outside.

His outlook for 2026 is tough to predict, as many rookie passrushers are. I think a save guess would be in the 7-9 range. He should eventually be looking to get into being a consistent double digit sack artist. What the Jets need out of Bailey is to bring some kind of x-factor to the defense. The Jets defense has gotten a lot better well-rounded this season, but doesn't really have a high profile difference maker unless Bailey steps up to be that year one. But with the level of production Bailey showed in college, this is a really safe pick that makes sure that the Jets passrush has the array of weapons to be constantly getting to the quarterback for the next 2-3 years at the very least.

I'll be honest and admit that I was a slight lean towards Arvell Reese before the draft. I thought he would be a more versatile piece we could build our defense around even if he was more of a raw talent. But the reason that I feel great about adding David Bailey is that he immediately makes the Jets less of a pushover to play against. Josh Allen and Drake Maye don't think they're losing a game to the Jets this year. But I know that with Joseph Ossai, Will McDonald, and now David Bailey in the Jets pass rotation, they're not looking forward to playing the Jets. I think that's an important part of exorcising the mope culture that the Jets developed under Saleh. You may or may not like this pick, but your team's QB hates it.

##Round 1, Pick 16 (#16 Overall) – Kenyon Sadiq, TE Oregon

Year	Rec	Yards	TD
2023	5	24	1
2024	24	308	2
2025	51	560	8

With their first round pick that the Jets received from the Sauce Gardner trade, the Jets shocked many by taking a Tight End, despite Makai Lemon being on the board. I was surprised by this, but not as much as others it seems. I was uncertain after watching how the board broke down with Makai Lemon falling to the Jets because I knew the Jets didn't do a lot of work on him and didn't seem to be targeting him. I think the reason for this is that the Jets are looking to add some size to their offense and there weren't a lot of bigger WRs in the first round. For a Tight End, Sadiq is actually on the smaller side at just a hair over 6'3" 240 lbs. However, that still puts him as being noticeably taller than basically every WR on the board at 16. But he takes advantage of his (relatively) smaller size by bringing top end speed for a tight end, having run a 4.39 40-yard dash at the Combine.

When I first heard the pick (and before the first round ended), this is basically how I rationalized it at the time. Sadiq's production as a passcatcher in Oregon primarily came out of the slot, so I think they looked at him and saw him as a day 1 plug and play that would take away DB's from Wilson and Adonai Mitchell on the outside. Though it meant the Jets might be lacking in a shifty slot receiver or a passcatcher with more outside the numbers experience, I was at least happy that the Jets were taking some kind of passcatcher in the 1st.

Talking about Sadiq as a player, he's more involved in the run blocking game than I think some give him credit for. His last year in Oregon, he showed some good downfield blocking where he drove through and finished his blocks. The Ducks also lined him up as a fullback in some goalline situations, and he leveraged his speed to mow down linebackers and open up the edge for his runningback. As a receiver, his production was far from bad his last season. But when compared to some of the tight ends we've seen go in the first round the past two drafts, they aren't exactly eyepopping. I think the Ducks could've been a bit more ambitious with using him outside the numbers. As a receiver, he was a very frequent 3rd down target in the slot and provided plenty of clutch catches to show for it. He's got good but not perfect catching reliability. The Ducks also used him as a target in the screen game; often being a dump off option for Dante Moore.

One of the complaints I heard from Jets fans was that we didn't need to be taking a TE because we already had Mason Taylor. I didn't think much of this until the Sadiq pick was finalized. But the more I thought about it, the more I disagreed with this notion. First, while I'm still bullish on Taylor even after this pick, if you look at his rookie season production, I don't think we should be counting our chickens before they have multiple touchdown catches. Avoiding a chance at a TE for Taylor risks us being back in tight end purgatory where we've been since Dustin Keller. And I don't think the pick was a waste if Mason Taylor ends up being a good TE. 12 personnel is on on the rise league-wide and the Jets were in the bottom 3rd of the league in 2025. As that list will show, using more 12 personnel doesn't guarantee any level of success, but I think it's a tool on the belt that Frank Reich should and (hopefully) will use more of this year to give Geno the most help he can. I don't think the Jets will (or at leas should) have trouble getting both Sadiq and Taylor on the field.

I think you can look at what the Jets get in Sadiq and what the Jets limitations were on offense and see how they thought he would be a good addition. But the next pick that I'm going to write about makes this pick a much more exciting x-factor rather than it was the moment that it happened. But in a vacuum, Sadiq has a skillset that can make him useful to the Jets year 1 and if the Jets are smart, will try to develop him more as a pass catcher on the perimeter.

##Round 1, Pick 30 (#30 Overall) - Omar Cooper Jr, WR Indiana

Year	Rec	Yards	TD
2023	18	267	2
2024	28	594	7
2025	69	937	13

The Jets went into the first round with just those two first round picks, however they were in prime position to trade back in with the first pick in the 2nd round. For the price of a 5th round pick, the Jets managed to jump just in front of the Buffalo Bills to draft Omar Cooper. Omar Cooper is as balanced a receiver as they come. He's had multiple seasons with solid production. He was primarily as a slot receiver for the Hoosiers, but he has the size, speed, and overall versatility to play on the outside in my opinion. He ran a 4.42 40, giving him good but not elite speed. One knock on him is the arm length of just 30.25" that will limit his range a bit. But at over 6' tall, he's a comparable build to Garrett Wilson, so I think they'll use Cooper to avoid putting Garrett taking knocks over the middle.

In 2025, he had over 400 yards after the catch, so I think the Jets will try to get him involved in the screen game to open things up downfield. What I liked most about this pick for the Jets is how he complements a lot of what the Jets already have at Passcatcher. While he's a similar size as Garret, his experience in the slot makes it easy to pencil him in to 11 personnel packages. His status as a YAC merchant can open things up for AD Mitchell deep (and hell, maybe even Arian Smith if they can make anything out of his pure speed). His ability to play on the outside opens things up over the middle for the Jets to use multiple tight ends over the middle. I loved the trade value here and I love the way he complements the Kenyon Sadiq pick. I think this was Darren Mougey being ambitious about getting pass catchers and being smart in terms of reading the board in re: to where Sadiq and Cooper would fall. I don't think Sadiq would've made it passed Philly nor do I think Cooper would've made it passed Buffalo. In this one draft, the Jets turned their pass catcher room from a liability to an asset.

Here's that one catch that almost made Gus Johnson's head explode.

##Round 2, Pick 18 (#50 Overall) - D'Angelo Ponds, CB Indiana

Year	Team	Tackles	Solo	PD	INT
2023	JMU	51	32	13	2
2024	IND	57	36	9	3
2025	IND	61	44	11	2

The Jets make their first move down from 44 to 50 to pick up a fourth round pick. They use this pick on CB D'Angelo Ponds, Omar Cooper's teammate from Indiana. He ended his college career on a high, winning Defensive MVP honors for both the Peach Bowl and the Rose Bowl. The main knock against him is his height (5'8.5") is far from ideal for a boundary corner. This will project him as a nickel corner at the NFL level whereas he played on the outside in college. I think this is fine for the Jets as the corner room isn't short on corners with the size to play on the outside, though some of them aren't experienced like Azareye'h Thomas. Daniel Jeremiah's pro comp for Ponds was New York Jets DB Aaron Glenn, now the Head Coach. Glenn was a pro bowler, so that's not a bad comparison for Ponds to shoot for.

Despite his height, he has big enough arms and hands to play with NFL sized receivers. He played his best college football against his best competition. He showed solid ball skills, with a 34 career Pass breakups and two pick sixes. I think despite his size, his experience covering perimeter receivers means he's well conditioned against larger receivers. The trick will be acclimating to the run duties that come with playing nickel corner at this level. Glenn has mentioned that they'll be cross training him at outside corner and nickel. I think this is because they want to ease him into the run game but also want to be flexible with all of their defensive backs. I think we'll see a lot of Minkah in the nickel this year as well, so I wonder if they'll kick Ponds out to the edge or maybe even line him up at safety (much less likely I would think, but possible).

But Ponds pops on most of the tape he's on. You can talk about the height all you want, but it's football, not Tinder. I think having Cooper and Ponds can be a major force in eliminating the gloom that's taken over this locker room. They've been in a program that seemed hopeless and turned it around quickly. Here's hoping they can do the same again.

##Round 4, Pick 3 (#103 Overall) - Darrell Jackson Jr., DT FSU

Year	Team	Tackles	Solo	Sacks
2021	MARY	22	15	0
2022	MIA	27	11	3
2023	FSU	1	3	0.5
2024	FSU	32	15	3.5
2025	FSU	45	13	1

The Jets didn't have a third round pick this year because we traded it to the Eagles for a migraine Haason Reddick. But they made up for it by having three 4th round picks, one at the beginning, middle, and end of the round. At the top of the round, they take Darrell Jackson Jr., a massive DT from FSU. Contrary to what our DC would have you believe the Jets are generally moving more towards a 3-4 this year. But with the size that Darrell Jackson Jr. brings, he can play DL in any kind of defensive line. He measured at 6'5.5" and 315 lbs at the Combine; with the arms and hand size to match.

Though he didn't start playing football until his Junior year of High School, he's played a ton at the college level across three schools. He played his best football in the run game, constantly eating up double teams and creating space for the linebackers. He has such unique size and enough experience at the college level that he could see the field as a NT or 1-tech sooner rather than later. I think the reason why there was so much demand for Darrell Jackson early in the 4th is that with his rare size, a lot of coaches could look at a guy like this and think "Man, I could develop him into something special". By every measurement, he's got the tools needed to be a high level IDL but he comes off as very raw on tape. He's got a huge body but doesn't always use it well. He's got a huge wingspan and I'd like to see it used more to expand his run rushing around the edge.

But the silver lining is that most of his issues can be coached out by a good DL coach, and fortunately for the Jets, Karl Dunbar is back in the building, so this gives him one hell of a project to work on. It'll take some coaching, but Jackson has the tools that could help him develop into a playmaking runstuffer for the Jets.

##Round 4, Pick 10 (#110 Overall) - Cade Klubnik, QB Clemson

The Jets packaged their later 4th round pick, a compensatory that was last in the round, to trade up in the 4th round pick (and get a 6th round pick) they got from the Ponds trade to stun the world by selecting Cade Klubnik in the 4th round. I think I'm gonna do something a bit different when explaining this pick but first, a disclaimer: I am a Clemson alum and have watched every game of Cade Klubnik's college career, sometimes in person. I like Cade Klubnik as a Tiger and as a person. Things didn't end the way we wanted but I was still going to root for him wherever he landed in the NFL because I think he represented the school well and treated his teammates well. As with any college football fan, nothing terrifies me more than a player from my school getting drafted by the Jets. I have a bias to want to like this pick because it would be good for Cade and for the Jets if he worked out and I have a bias screaming at me to forsake the name of "Defending the Draft" to tell you about how this is a match made in Hell. I'm going to do my best to be objective, though it might be clear at times that I'm not. But know I've watched more Cade Klubnik than almost any other Jets fan you're going to talk to.

There's a lot to discuss and a lot to defend, and I'm hard-pressed to remember a Jets draft pick that generated this much debate. And I think it would be tonedeaf of me to merely try to justify it without addressing many of the arguments against the pick that I've seen Jets fans make. I think there are a lot of good arguments against this pick, but also some bad ones. There are also good arguments in favor of Klubnik (at least as a developmental/backup) and bad arguments, especially in regards to the trade to get him. I want to do a rapid fire where I categorize these arguments and address them briefly.

###Good Arguments against Klubnik:

• Cade Klubnik regressed in many ways statistically from 2024 to 2025. For most prospects this is bad, but for a QB it's often a death sentence. It's a sign a QB got exposed.

• The value proposition of taking a QB in the 4th round is generally not there. There are definitely exceptions like Dak, but it's too late in the draft to get a good starting QB usually. And unlike with 6th or 7th round picks, 4th round picks are too valuable for dart throws that may never play for the team.

• You didn't really have to trade a 4th round pick to get Klubnik. It's hard to know for sure where he would've gone had the Jets not traded up. But it feels like bidding against yourself to trade out of the 4th round to go 18 picks when you could've probably waited till the end of the 4th round and still gotten Klubnik. If you had picked Connor Lew 128th overall like the Bengals did, and still drafted Klubnik 140th, the vibes about this pick would be much higher. Instead, we leave holes in our roster while we use two midround picks on a guy who very well may never see the field.

###Bad Arguments against Klubnik:

• "They should've taken Nussmeier or <insert QB still on the board>!". I don't think most of these people were really pounding the table for Drew Allar or Carson Beck on day 2. That's fine, but this means that we need to contextualize Klubnik in terms of how he stacks up against the Day 3 QBs and I think when you do it this way, the pick isn't that bad. The league showed what they think of Nuss (who barely got drafted with the 9th to last pick) and most of these other quarterbacks when none of them went in the 4th round with Klubnik. It doesn't necessarily mean that Klubnik in the 4th was a good pick, but I think it means that there wasn't some easy, better option sitting there staring us in the face.

• "Drafting a backup QB is pointless, there's no value in it." Paying attention to how other QB rooms have shaken out will prove this wrong. For one, backup quarterbacks earn serious money. Jameis Winston and Gardner Minshew are making over $5MM a year this season. That's starter money for other positions. Backup QB isn't a big deal until you're starting QB goes down. You'd think Jets fans who were here for 2015 would remember this, but I guess not. Maybe it isn't the biggest priority for where the Jets are now, but I think when you've got a bad QB room, being proactive isn't a bad idea. And it's not uncommon for backups drafted behind 1st round QBs to become starters themselves: Read Kirk Cousins, Brock Purdy, Brady, etc. I'm not saying it's going to happen, I'm saying it won't happen if you don't have a young QB better than Brady Cook or Bailey Zappe. At the very least, I'll be more intrigued seeing Klubnik over either of those two guys this year.

###Good Arguments for Klubnik:

• "You shouldn't throw his 2025 tape away, but you also shouldn't throw his 2024 tape away". Klubnik showed a serious amount of talent and progress his second year as starter. He led the Tigers to a CFP appearance and an ACC title win all while throwing for 36 TDs and just 6 INTs. If he did that this year, we'd be talking about him as a #2 overall pick option. He didn't so we shouldn't have. But I do think this is why it isn't implausible to see why a coach would be willing to throw some 4th round picks to get him in the room and see if they can fix what Clemson OC Garret Riley broke this year.

• "Clemson's Coaching Staff and WR room let him down" I'm not going to go into much detail on this one. I think it's a fair point: After all, Garret Riley got fired after this season for his disastrous coaching of a not-untalented Clemson offense that had four players drafted from it this year. I sat in the snow in Yankee Stadium watching Klubnik make great throws to receivers whose hands were frozen solid. If you want to know exactly what Clemson did wrong on offense this year, Just A Football Guy's video on it goes over most of them. I try not to play the excuses game early, but as someone who watched all these games, I can tell you the points he makes are not wrong.

###Bad Arguments for Klubnik:

• "4th round picks aren't really worth much anyway" I don't know how many make this point in earnest, but this mentality is endemic of a fanbase whose team has routinely wasted 4th round picks we've just assumed they're meaningless. Winning teams get quality backups and serviceable starters in the 4th round. The fact that we used a 2nd, 4th, and 5th round pick on Hackenberg, Morgan, and Travis who combined for 0 snaps is in no small part why our team is as bad as it is.

• "Frank Reich is a QB whisperer" What? Who has he developed? Certainly not Bryce Young or Carson Wentz. I saw comments on that video saying "maybe Frank Reich has one last miracle in him!" Getting this job was a miracle in and of itself.

I think if Klubnik can be our backup of the future, this pick will be worth it. He won't stop us from drafting a QB round 1 and I'm more interested in watching him than Brady Cook.