The offseason is underway for the New York Jets. It is the first for Aaron Glenn and Darren Mougey. It is still quite early. The NFL Draft is over a month away. There are more players to be acquired.
What can we say about how the new duo is operating? Here are five thoughts.
**The Jets seem to be functioning like an actual professional football franchise for the first time in quite a while.**
I want to put this statement in perspective. Aaron Glenn and Darren Mougey are still very early in their regime. They haven’t made a Draft pick. They haven’t had their first game. To the extent they have made moves, nobody knows how they will pan out. My statement doesn’t mean they are lock Hall of Famers. It wouldn’t take that much for me become a critic if they took wrong turns.
That said, I appreciate how they have conducted themselves so far. Over the last few years, it hasn’t felt to me like the number one focus of the New York Jets has been winning games and building a solid team. The number one focus has been getting media attention. Moves were made that were sure to generate praise on the back pages, sports talk radio, and online. These moves weren’t always in the best interest of the franchise. We could start by talking about the team’s refusal to ask the hard questions about whether a then-39 year old quarterback who had already shown some signs of decline was really all the team needed to make a Super Bowl run.
Plenty of crazy stories have come out regarding this team’s workings behind the scenes over the last two years. Whether or not you actually believe that the Jets are making moves based on Madden ratings and the advice Woody Johnson’s sons received on social media, it has been clear that outside influences have been driving major decisions more than football sense.
The tide seems to have turned over the last few months. Why do I say that? Simply look at the Aaron Rodgers decision. The Jets didn’t drag things out and allow the situation to turn into a sideshow. They were decisive and turned the page.
This clearly wasn’t the move to make if you were worried about buzz. The decision to move on from Rodgers produced plenty of backlash from the normal online and media quarters.
The splashy move would have been to bring Rodgers back for another year. Hype up how he finally feels fully healed from the Achilles injury and how he didn’t feel like himself a year ago. Make a big deal about how him and Davante Adams spending the full training camp together will make a big difference. The back pages, ESPN, NFL Network, talk radio, etc. would eat it up. The Jets would again get a lot of preseason buzz.
But then the autumn would come, and they would underachieve again.
Thankfully the new regime decided there was a better direction.
**The decision to move on from Rodgers was the correct one.**
One of the biggest arguments I heard against moving on from Rodgers was the idea that the Jets would have a difficult time finding a better option at quarterback. Sure, maybe Rodgers could be a pain and bring distractions. Maybe there were salary issues. But he gave the Jets a better chance than any other conceivable option.
I think these arguments vastly understate the downside of the issues that come off the field.
But even if they didn’t, they ignore a key reality. Aaron Rodgers isn’t a great quarterback anymore. In fact, he isn’t even a good quarterback anymore.
In 2024, Rodgers finished 30th in completion percentage, 28th in yards per attempt, 21st in passer rating, and 28th in QBR.
It’s just as important to look at things on a game by game basis.
The league-wide completion percentage in the NFL was 65.1% in 2024. Rodgers was below that in 10 of 17 games.
The league-wide yards per attempt average was 7.1. Rodgers was below that in 9 of 17 games.
The league-wide passer rating was 92.3. Rodgers was below that in 8 of 17 games.
Since the season ended, a narrative has developed that Rodgers had a strong finish to the season after he “finally got healthy.” This is supposed to show he is still a top tier quarterback.
From the standpoint that Rodgers had an excellent game in the season finale, I guess that you could say he finished strong. Otherwise? It’s tough to see the argument.
The Jets played six games after their bye which stretched from Thanksgiving weekend into early January. In those six games, Rodgers was below the league average in completion percentage, yards per attempt, and passer rating in three.
Aaron Rodgers just isn’t that good anymore. Could he experience a resurgence in 2025? I guess anything is possible, but expecting a big performance bump from a 41 year old who turns 42 during the season seems like a bad bet.
Either way, it’s difficult to see how replacing this level of play is an impossibility. It certainly shouldn’t cost the $37.5 million pricetag Rodgers would have come with.
**Justin Fields is a reasonable upside play for the Jets.**
If you select a quarterback early in the NFL Draft, and he is able to hit the ground running, it is a big win for your team. The reality, however, is many quarterbacks are not ready to succeed on day one. It can take years to figure how to read complex defenses, adjust to the speed of the opposition, and get comfortable making progression reads.
I think it is a fair criticism of NFL coaches and general managers to say they too frequently view young quarterbacks as a ticket to easy street. If you hit on a quarterback, your career can be made. Many young quarterbacks need help and time to grow, however.
In recent years, we have seen passers such as Sam Darnold, Geno Smith, Ryan Tannehill, and Baker Mayfield shake off disappointing (or in the case of Mayfield inconsistent) starts to their respective careers and make it work on a second, third, or even fourth team. Sometimes you need time to adjust to the league and get yourself into the right situation.
Enter Justin Fields. I can’t tell you whether or not Fields will be the next reclamation project to have success. I will say he has the profile the Jets should be betting on. Fields is a former first round pick with intriguing tools. He probably would have benefitted from being brought along more slowly in Chicago. Now four years in, is he ready to turn the corner?
“Upside” is an overused buzzword. If you try hard enough, you can convince yourself just about any player has upside.
Let’s figure out whether how much high level play there has actually been.
I took a look at Fields’ career. He has posted a passer rating of 100 or better in 21.6% of the games where he has thrown at least 20 passes.
That number is meaningless without context. Should we be encouraged? Discouraged?
I decided to look to Sam Darnold’s career. Prior to 2024, Darnold had a 100 or better passer rating in 23.6% of the games where he had at least 20 attempts.
To state the obvious, this doesn’t necessarily mean that Fields is guaranteed to have a Darnold type rise. Darnold was in a more favorable situation on many levels. Still, it seems reasonable to suggest that Fields has flashed high level play frequently enough to believe there is real ability.
Fields may not have good of a situation as Darnold, but he has significantly more ability to create as a runner, which will open up the playbook in a way few quarterbacks can provide.
It may or may not work, but this is the type of profile the Jets should be taking a chance on, particularly in a Draft class that doesn’t seem to be particularly promising at quarterback.
**Seeing Jamien Sherwood re-sign is encouraging.**
I’ve said it before. I’ll continue to say it for a long time. A lot of the big spending in free agency is dumb money. A lot of success in the NFL is situation dependent. A player might be a great fit for one locker room and just not a fit in a different one.
You can hit on free agent imports if you are smart, but often the best move is to simply retain your own talent.
I was pessimistic on the Jets’ ability to retain Jamien Sherwood. It seemed like through much of the lead up to free agency, the talk was about his imminent departure. Sure, there were stories citing anonymous sources that the Jets wanted to keep him. That sounded like your typical face saving measure to me, though.
It was a delight to me to find out that the Jets and Sherwood agreed to a deal to keep him in New York.
Normally retaining a free agent means keeping him in the system where he found success. That obviously isn’t the case here, but this move keeps a 25 year old who has consistently improved on a team where he was respected enough to be voted MVP.
The Jets spent four years developing Sherwood. He improved from late round project to solid part-time player to quality starter. It would have been disappointing to see the Jets spend so much time training him and allow another team to reap the fruits of this labor. Over the last 25 years, I’ve watched James Farrior, Jonathan Vilma, and Demario Davis leave the Jets and make a new team very happy at the linebacker position. It’s nice to see this fate avoided with Sherwood.
I think the Jets showed the right priorities with this decision. They committed to a 25 year old who is ascending. That also meant making the tough call of moving on from CJ Mosley, a respected locker room leader but one who is 33 and whose body is breaking down.
**The Brandon Stephens and Andre Cisco signings are the type a front office needs to nail.**
In the early days of free agency, there are plenty of pieces of content speculating about which teams are “winners.” Usually these are the teams that have signed the biggest name players.
If you are a Jets fan, I probably don’t need to tell you that these rankings are frequently inaccurate. That big contract for the big name player doesn’t always work out so well for reasons we mentioned earlier.
The best moves are often the ones nobody thinks much about in the moment.
How much attention did the Jets get for signing DJ Reed in 2022? Compare that with the hype for the Tyron Smith signing a year ago. Which signing ended up being better?
Sometimes the flashy signings do pan out, but the best signings tend to come for undervalued players who fit your system well. There might be something about their respective games that leads you to believe they will see more success on a new team.
Brandon Stephens has the profile of a cornerback who could succeed with a heavy diet of man coverage if he gets coached up. Andre Cisco had a down season in 2024 but preceded that with back-to-back seasons with 3+ interceptions. Could he be a good fit as a deep safety in a blitz heavy scheme?
As much as anything, Darren Mougey’s ability to accurately evaluate players like this will determine his success as the team’s general manager.