Roughly three days into free agency, the Jets are already starting to look like a different team. Since Monday’s unofficial start of free agency, they’ve made a number of moves and brought in several new players. Now that the first wave has passed, it’s worth stepping back and trying to understand what the Jets might actually be trying to accomplish.
This is the question many Jets fans and analysts are trying to answer. What exactly is the Jets’ goal with these moves?
On the surface, it’s fair to question some of the decisions. The Jets prioritized a 37-year-old linebacker, a 33-year-old defensive tackle, a 29-year-old safety, and a 36-year-old quarterback. Those are not the moves most people expect from a team that aggressively tanked the previous season. It’s also fairly rare to see a team that won just three games (and arguably had less talent than anyone in the league ) go out and sign several veteran players who are already on the older side of their positions.
Because of that, some fans and analysts have framed this as the Jets pivoting into a “win-now” approach. I don’t necessarily see it that way.
If you look at the situation objectively, not much has actually changed from the Jets’ long-term perspective over the last few days. Even after these contracts, the team still has very little committed money on the books in the near or long-term future.
Over the past year the Jets essentially performed one of the more aggressive financial resets in the league. Outside of Garrett Wilson, they cut or traded almost anyone with a significant long-term financial commitment. By 2027 the cap situation will effectively be fully reset. Aaron Rodgers’ albatross of a contract will be gone, and the lingering dead money from Joe Douglas’s reign of pushing cap hits into the future will finally be cleared.
Even after this week’s free agent deals, the Jets still project to have the most effective cap space in the league in 2027, while their active cap spending remains among the lowest. That doesn’t look like a team abandoning its long-term plan. If anything, it suggests the opposite. The Jets still appear committed to their primary strategy: building through the draft. If that wasn’t the case, we would likely be seeing far larger long-term financial commitments on the roster and a more aggressive approach with the top tier free agents in this class.
Now, it’s fair to debate whether the Jets should have targeted older players at all. Demario Davis, Minkah Fitzpatrick, and David Onyemata are all still solid starters, but they are clearly in the second half — or in Davis’ case, the final stage — of their careers.
However, when looking at the structure of these deals, most of them barely impact the team’s long-term cap flexibility. Outside of Fitzpatrick, none of the contracts meaningfully affect the Jets’ long-term cap outlook. Do I agree with every structure - particularly guaranteeing some money to Demario Davis next year? Not necessarily. But that’s a relatively small complaint in the bigger picture.
Sure, the Jets could have rolled more unused cap space into future seasons, and maybe they should have. But even without doing that, they are already projected to have more cap space next year than they can realistically spend.
Because of that, I think Glenn and Mougey were looking for something much simpler: competency.
Tanking can sound great in theory, and there are certainly examples where it has worked. But what often gets overlooked are the situations where it creates a toxic infrastructure within an organization. While the Jets clearly had no interest in competing by the end of last season, I highly doubt Glenn and Mougey expected the roster to look as bad as it ultimately did. Neither of their seats were particularly hot in October, but by late December the situation had definitely changed. When a roster looks as dysfunctional as the Jets did down the stretch, the pressure inevitably starts to build.
Adding a few veterans on short-term deals can help stabilize things. The goal may simply be to bring a level of professionalism and competence that was completely lacking last year. I don’t think even the most optimistic Jets fan believes this team is suddenly a lock for the playoffs. But there is real value in the Jets looking like a credible NFL team again. It’s simply too damaging for a franchise to look as lost as they did last season.
There will still be plenty of opportunities for young players. This roster will likely feature several highly drafted rookies along with a large number of younger players receiving meaningful snaps. It will continue to be one of the youngest rosters in the league when you weigh for snap counts. Having a few experienced veterans around to help guide them, and keep things from completely falling apart isn’t the worst strategy.
And not every signing the Jets made fits the “older veteran” category either. Players like Joseph Ossai and Dylan Parham could realistically become multi-year pieces for this team. Younger players like Kingsley Enagbare and Dane Belton will get an opportunity to win spots and become longer-term pieces as well.
All in all, the Jets appear to be sticking to their long-term vision. The focus still seems to be building a new core around Garrett Wilson, Olu Fashanu, Joe Tippman, Armand Membou, and the eight picks they hold in the top 50 across the next two draft classes. The QB of the future isn’t on the roster and hopefully will work itself out with an increased talent pool around him. The good thing is, that plan appears unchanged.
The hope seems to be that a few of these veterans can stabilize certain positions in the short term while buying the Jets time to find longer-term solutions through the draft. More than anything, the most important takeaway is that the Jets didn’t panic and start making desperate moves in an attempt to win immediately which was a fear of mine.
And for a team that is still very much in the early stages of a rebuild, that’s probably the right approach.
See More:
* [New York Jets Analysis](/new-york-jets-analysis)
* [New York Jets Free Agency](/new-york-jets-free-agency)