CB Azareye'h Thomas, Round 3
Azareye'h Thomas saw extended defensive time vs. Carolina and got his first pro start at Cincinnati for Sauce Gardner. He wound up playing all 59 D-snaps plus 9 more on specials, and finished with 5 tackles and a pass defense — his third of the season — while applying half of the double coverage to hold the dangerous Ja'Marr Chase to 12 catches but fewer than 100 yards.
WR Arian Smith, Round 4A
Arian Smith, a college speedster, has made 4 starts. He has 6 receptions for 47 yards but vs. the Bengals his sole reception from Justin Fields went for 23 yards on the first play of the fourth-quarter go-ahead drive that ended with Taylor's TD grab. More explosive plays are certainly ahead considering his Georgia career average of 19.9 yards/catch.
S Malachi Moore, Round 4B
The versatile Alabama DB has made 5 starts the last 3 weeks in the base defense at S alongside Andre Cisco. Besides his 336 defensive snaps, Malachi Moore's racked up 28 tackles, a team-leading 8 of them coming against the Bengals, plus 6 more tackles on kick coverage. He notched his first PD and first TFL as a Jet the week before vs. the Panthers.
LB Kiko Mauigoa, Round 5A
Did anyone say baptism by fire? Kiko Mauigoamoved into the starting lineup when Quincy Williams went on IR after an injury vs. the Buccaneers and has started the past 5 games. Mauigoa's got 246 defensive snaps, on which he's recorded 31 tackles, with a season-high 8 vs. Denver, and he's made 1.5 stops for loss/no gain.
DL Tyler Baron, Round 5B
Working his way into the D-line rotation that has a number of veterans ahead of him on the depth chart, Tyler Johnson's been deactivated for 3 games and didn't play vs. the Stripes. Yet he's still gotten the call for 4 games and has logged 102 total snaps (75 defensive, 27 special teams). He has 6 tackles, with 1.5 tackles coming on plays of no gain.
One veteran who's kept a close watch on this draft class is DL Harrison Phillips and he's said the Jets group stacks up against the best sets of young players he's been around in his eight-year NFL career.
"I've been around a lot of them who are just as talented as some of the players we have," Phillips said. "But not as many of them are willing to learn and willing to hear the hard things and willing to just have that growth mindset of what we've gone through for seven weeks. In the NIL world, it's 'I want to get out of here.' I don't see that from this class. I see them leaning in harder, taking all the things we're trying to do leadership-wise, so I would never put ceilins on any of those guys."
Glenn put some icing on the cake of his youthful gang of Green & White after their first half-season as pros.
"Listen, they're still learning and they're going to make mistakes, and we know that," Glenn said. "But we're going to own those mistakes, we're going to improve, and we're going to keep going.
"We're excited about those guys getting the reps in."