The New York Jets have the 7th pick in the upcoming 2025 NFL draft, which is a good place to be. The Jets have serious needs plus an additional seven picks to help remedy the lack of talent on the team. You can’t look at the Jets team and truthfully say that they are only a few players away from being a competitive squad. Thinking like that is what has the Jets picking 7th overall in the draft to begin with.
The Jets need upgrades all over the team. Forget the PFF grades that make the Jets offensive line look okay. Use your eyes to see the truth. Tyron Smith was graded out as the 30th best offensive tackle in all of the NFL. He only played in 10 games, which is 58.8% of the games, yet he had six penalties (90th most out of 141 offensive tackles) and allowed five sacks (112th most out of 141 offensive tackles). So PFF graded Smith as the 30th best offensive tackle in overall grade - 45th best in pass blocking and 27th best in run blocking. Did anyone see Smith moving defenders downfield in the run game? Edge players regularly were racing by him at warp speed when he played.
The defense wasn’t the same as in previous years, with the team losing seven games by one score while allowing numerous teams to easily go down the field in the last two minutes to win the game. The Jets allowed 404 points in 2024, which was 49 more than in 2023 and 88 more than in 2022. The Jets defense is not getting better, it’s getting worse.
So anytime the Jets have a top 10 pick you hear cries of “trade down, trade down.” That seems advantageous, but it is often unrealistic, since you need a trading partner and a desire to do so.
When a general manager has a top 10 pick, he wants to show the world (and the press) that he can bring in a playmaker who can help make a difference. He will have a news conference with the 1st round selection with Woody by his side saying how this player will change the Jets’ fortunes.
We have seen this before. How has that worked out?
It’s time for new thinking, how about trading down?
About time someone thought of that.
Unfortunately, this is a poor draft to trade down in.
This is true in a sense, but it depends on what your goal is. If you are looking for one or two great prospects to add to a team that is looking for a championship, then yes, it’s a poor draft. If your team needs an influx of strong, young, high character players then this is the perfect draft to trade down in.
It’s true that this draft lacks many high profile players that teams covet. This is why other teams might want to trade up in the draft to secure one of those rare prized prospects. Yet there are a great amount of players who can be solid contributors to a franchise without being a first or second round pick. I have less than 10 prospects who are can’t miss prospects. The rest are a crap shoot. Yet I know there are teams who are hoping a player drops to them in the mid 20’s of this draft. This is an opportunity to get some premium picks (even outside the 1st round) to build your team with.
The reason you trade down in 2025 is because of the lack of numerous great prospects, but also because there are razor thin margins between prospects in every position group. The differences between players rated in the early 2nd and early 4th are not as broad as in previous drafts.
The Jets need an overhaul of talent, so bring in as many talented players as possible. They won’t all work out, but if only 60% become solid contributors then it is imperative that you have as many draft choices as you can. It’s not like the Jets are on the edge of greatness, so you give yourself as many chances as you can to be successful. Trading backs gives you more chances to do so.
Normally you would hold tight in a light draft. This is the poorest draft for top talent in years, but it’s also a deep draft in terms of competitive prospects. There are a lot of blue collar guys who can help a team on each side of the ball in the correct system.
If I were the Jets GM
This where you all will throw shade at me.
I would look to trade Garrett Wilson to the San Francisco 49ers
The 49ers just traded their best wide receiver to the Washington Commanders for a 5th round pick in 2025. You could probably get the 11th, 43rd and 112th pick for Wilson. The 49ers have 11 picks in the 2025 draft so they can’t possibly use them all. They had a down season but I’m sure they think they are close to being a great team again. Wilson is a prolific receiver who would shine in their system.
I know Wilson is a fan favorite but you have to make football decisions, not emotional ones.
For all his greatness Wilson is not a great playmaker. He has 14 touchdowns in three seasons. More telling is that Wilson had the exact same receiving yards per game as a rookie (64.9) with quarterbacks Zach Wilson, Mike White, Joe Flacco and Chris Streveler than he did with Aaron Rodgers despite the 101 receptions in 2024. He even had a former All-Pro receiver opposite him, so he wasn’t constantly double covered. Wilson even had 7 more targets and 18 more receptions than his rookie season but the same average per game.
Garrett Wilson is a fine receiver with very good hands and a lion's heart. He is a competitor, which makes him marketable to another team. Wilson has three consecutive 1,000 yard seasons under his belt, so he is going to want premium money in a new contract, especially if he thinks the team can’t compete for a championship. You have to give up something of value to get value.
If the Jets are sitting at #11 they can still get a great player, but if a team like the Denver Broncos calls and offers #20 and #51 for the 11th pick, I would jump on it in a heart beat. You might ask why a team like Denver would trade up? They just made the playoffs? There are at least three reasons. The Broncos might see a player who can give them a boost at #11 that wouldn’t be around at #20. The Broncos of course know Jets general manager Darren Mougey well, so they might be open to make a trade with the Jets. The Broncos might believe they can take advantage of a neophyte general manager.
If the Jets made those trades then they would have 4 picks between #20 and #51. That is a great way to help build a team.
The Wild Card
The wild card in this equation is general manager Darren Mougey. Mougey has never been a general manager before, so how will he play this draft and will other teams look to take advantage of a young general manager in his first gig? We don’t know what Mougey thinks of the Jets’ current roster. The Broncos played the Jets in 2024, so he has that recent scouting report on them. Since his hiring he should have made an assessment of the entire roster.
If Mougey has less than stellar views of the Jets’ roster he may want as many picks as he can get to try rebuilding this team in his image. However, we have no idea what type of players he will be looking for.
Culture Change
It was reported in The Athletic that a Jet executive said “There’s no nice way to say what we need to say, which is: Unless we drastically alter our culture and the way we do things from the top down, we have no chance.” To address this coach Aaron Glenn said “I can stand in front of a group of men, and I can give as many rah-rah speeches as I can, but culture is about people and getting the right people in the building. I saw that firsthand with what Bill Parcells did, and that’s why the turnaround was so fast.”
If culture change is what you need you obviously need new players. Players with the right attitude, high character players, young players who can be leaders. Glenn was in Detroit, he saw a team transform under him and Dan Campbell going from a 3-13 squad to 15-2 in four years. Obviously, they brought in new players and know what culture changing players look like.
We are about to find out soon what they intend to do.
What do you think?