Rich CiminiAug 31, 2025, 11:00 AM
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A look at what's happening around the New York Jets:
1. Are Fields' receivers good enough? They shelled out serious money for Garrett Wilson (a four-year, $130 million extension), but the Jets operated on a shoestring budget when assembling the rest of the receiving corps. The three veterans not named Wilson -- Josh Reynolds, Allen Lazard and Xavier Gipson -- are making a combined $6.3 million this season.
Those same three players have played 233 games between them, but have produced only four 100-yard receiving days (all by Lazard).
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Despite an obvious need at wide receiver, general manager Darren Mougey insisted, "I like the room as a whole."
The players after Wilson, he said, complement each other well. Mougey said Reynolds, Lazard and Tyler Johnson (practice squad) have "all played in the league and had success."
"[They're] bigger bodies, you can move them around, they can block in the run game," Mougey said, adding that Gipson and rookie Arian Smith provide "the speed piece."
The Jets are counting on Smith, a fourth-round pick, to bring the juice. He had a drop problem at Georgia (nine last season), but he had that under control in training camp. They expect him to contribute right away, which can be dicey with a Day 3 draft pick.
"We're really, really excited about this player," director of player personnel Robbie Paton said. "From OTAs to training camp and into the preseason, you've seen him just get better and better and better. He's really going to feel like a guy that's going to make an impact early in the season for us at receiver, giving us that explosive, take-the-top-off element on offense."
The objective (besides winning) is to surround quarterback Justin Fields with enough resources to jump-start his career. Whether they've done that is debatable, although Mougey claimed, "I feel really good about the pieces around him and it starts in that running back room, those guys next to him."
Running back might be their strongest position, and their hope is that they run the ball so well that it forces defenses to overplay the run, creating one-on-one matchups for the receivers. If not, they will have trouble winning on the outside.
Can Jets rookie receiver Arian Smith step up and be quarterback Justin Fields' No. 2 option? John Jones/Imagn Images
2. A name to watch: One receiver who might be available is Jakobi Meyers, who reportedly wants the Las Vegas Raiders to trade him. Jets passing game coordinator Scott Turner, a Raiders assistant the previous two seasons, spoke glowingly of Meyers last December: "I tell people all the time, he's one of my favorite players that I've ever coached."
Meyers, 28, is coming off his best season -- 87 catches, 1,027 yards. He's in the final year of his contract ($10.5 million base) and wants a raise.
3. Aiming high:Quincy Williams has big goals for himself, and he's not shy about sharing them.
"My expectations are, be the No. 1 linebacker this year -- All-Pro," he told ESPN. "On top of that, lead my team."
Williams, a first-team All-Pro in 2023, said he's striving to become better in pass coverage. "That next level," he said, will be interceptions and pass breakups. He has one interception and 21 pass breakups in six seasons.
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4. Mr. Clean: On his first day at the facility, newly acquired defensive tackle Harrison Phillips met Williams in a hallway.
"The first thing he said was, 'I have to keep you clean,'" Williams said. "So he's talking my language already."
The Jets are counting on Phillips, acquired from the Minnesota Vikings, to galvanize their run defense. He finished 18th out of 33 defensive tackles in run stop EPA last season (minimum: 250 snaps), per NFL Next Gen Stats. That's not great, but it was higher than the Jets' top interior players, Javon Kinlaw (24th) and Quinnen Williams (26th).
5. Mystery in the middle: Coach Aaron Glenn is refusing to name his starting center, saying the competition between Josh Myers and incumbent Joe Tippmann is "still playing out." The injury to left guard John Simpson (back) could be a factor in the delay. If Simpson isn't ready for the opener, Tippmann will play left guard. One scout who has studied the Jets said Tippmann is a better guard than center.
6. X marks the spot: One of the most intriguing roster decisions was Gipson, the incumbent, over rookie Jamaal Pritchett at punt returner. Pritchett showed a lot of flash in the preseason, but he did muff a punt in the finale. Meanwhile, Gipson fielded 145 straight punts in practice without a muff, according to Glenn.
Maybe Gipson has improved, because ball security was an issue last season. He led the NFL in fumbles (four) and muffs (three) on punt returns, according to NFL Next Gen Stats.
Glenn said Gipson is "dynamite in the open field," but that wasn't the case in 2024. His yards over expected was -0.3 per return, below the league average (0.5). With Pritchett on the practice squad, Gipson could be one or two muffs away from being replaced.
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7. Hold the Sauce: The players elected their 2025 captains -- Fields, Wilson, guard Alijah Vera-Tucker, Quinnen Williams, linebacker Jamien Sherwood and special teamer Marcelino McCrary-Ball. Conspicuously missing: cornerback Sauce Gardner.
8. Gang green, indeed: Rosters are fluid this time of the year, but as of late in the week, the Jets had the third-youngest roster in the league (average age: 26.0), per Spotrac. It's a departure from last year, when they had the eighth oldest (26.9).
9. The last word on Corley: Former coach Robert Saleh and ex-GM Joe Douglas had a strong affinity for Malachi Corley during the 2024 draft. (Remember their text exchange, inspired by the movie "Draft Day"?) But don't underestimate the role of Aaron Rodgers in the decision to trade up for Corley.
Rodgers studied the receivers in the draft and concluded that Corley was "my favorite receiver" because of his "mindset" and "ferocity." He shared those sentiments with team brass, which always aimed to please Rodgers. So the Jets traded up to take Corley with the first pick in the third round.
Corley never panned out and was waived Tuesday. (He landed on the Cleveland Browns' practice squad.) He played only nine games, becoming the second third-round pick by the Jets in the past 18 years to play fewer than 10 games before being cut. The other was Jachai Polite (2019), who was cut in his first training camp.
10. Did you know? Rodgers, whom the Jets will face in the opener, has lost three straight Week 1 starts -- sans 2023, but that's the infamous game in which he played only four snaps after rupturing his Achilles.
He didn't play well in any of them -- all sub-200-yard passing days, with one touchdown and four interceptions. You might say he has had four bummer openers in a row.