It was tempting to believe things couldn\u2019t possibly get worse for the Jets heading into 2025. Seasoned fans and media observers knew better, of course, but there is always a pang of hope when a new coach and quarterback come to town, even in Florham Park. It didn\u2019t last long. Most recent head coach Robert Saleh was party to the worst defense in Jets history, allowing 504 points in 2021. New defensive-minded head coach Aaron Glenn allowed 503 his first year on the job, with the offense mustering 300 measly tallies. We suppose that by the letter of the law, things weren\u2019t as bad as they had ever been \u2014 Glenn gets one point bragging rights there \u2014 but you would be forgiven if you disagreed.<\/p>\n
\u25b6 2025 Stats (Rank)Points per game: 17.6 (29th)Total yards per game: 263.6 (29th)Plays per game: 59.4 (30th)Dropbacks per game: 37.7 (20th)Dropback EPA per play: -0.14 (30th)Designed rush attempts per game: 24.1 (23rd)Rush EPA per play: -0.12 (28th)\u25b6 Can Geno Smith and Frank Reich turn back the clock? (And to what exactly?)<\/p>\n
The Jets\u2019 2025 plans were not best laid. The same can be said for 2026. If Justin Fields was something of a Hail Mary, he at least still had a modicum of untapped potential. The same was true of first-time play-caller Tanner Engstrand. It was to no one\u2019s surprise when the plan failed, but again, you could hope against hope. That is not the case with Geno Smith and new OC Frank Reich. These are long-faded assets coming off their worst work yet. It\u2019s unclear what there even is to save in this offense, but we know these are not the men for the job.<\/p>\n
\u25b6 Passing Game<\/p>\n
QB: Geno Smith, Cade Klubnik, Brady Cook
WR: Garrett Wilson, Tim Patrick
WR: Adonai Mitchell, Isaiah Williams
WR: Omar Cooper Jr,, Arian Smith
TE: Kenyon Sadiq, Mason Taylor, Jeremy Ruckert<\/p>\n
Justin Fields was amongst the worst players in football last season. He still had a higher EPA per play than Geno Smith. But you don\u2019t have to get fancy to dress up Smith\u2019s failures for the doomed 2025 Raiders. He led the league in interceptions (17). The same was true of sacks taken (a mind-boggling 55). He barely averaged 200 yards passing per game. His already modest rushing production further deflated. He was a bad player in a terrible offense for a forsaken team.<\/p>\n
How or why a reunion with the cursed franchise that drafted him back in 2013 was anyone\u2019s \u201cplan\u201d will remain unknowable, but it is our current reality. Smith\u2019s reality is that his skill corps is a little bit better than the one he had in Vegas. Maybe that wouldn\u2019t be true if Brock Bowers had stayed healthy last season, but he didn\u2019t. In New York, Smith has a group led by Garrett Wilson, which, talk about cursed. The No. 10 overall pick of the 2022 Draft, these have been Wilson\u2019s \u201cprofessional\u201d quarterbacks: Zach Wilson, Mike White, Joe Flacco, Trevor Siemian, Tim Boyle, Aaron Rodgers, Fields, Tyrod Taylor and Brady Cook. Just what exactly are you supposed to do with that? For Wilson, the answer has been \u201creliably produce as a WR2 in fantasy.\u201d Although disappointing in the context of his draft position and seeming upside, it\u2019s a staggering feat in Jersey.<\/p>\n
But we don\u2019t grade on a curve in fantasy, and Wilson\u2019s setup is as rough as it has ever been. Now 26 (this week), Wilson is coming off a season in which he missed time with injury for the first time during his four-year career. He\u2019s healthy now, but he will also be competing for looks with a pair of first-round skill players. With this guaranteed to be a run-heavy attack and Wilson fighting for looks from a quarterback who is just about out of the league, it simply isn\u2019t possible to concoct a \u201clong-awaited breakout\u201d case. Being drafted in the WR20 range in summer best ball drafts, that feels like a good target for reactivating re-draft managers.<\/p>\n
There are several intriguing options behind Wilson, but we will start with the holdover, Adonai Mitchell. A \u201cwhat might have been?\u201d for several reasons during his abbreviated Colts tenure \u2014 lack of playing time, quarterback woes, ghastly drops \u2014 Mitchell somehow had the best half-season stretch of his young career during his eight games riding the Jets\u2019 quarterback carousel. That included a 100-yard outing with Tyrod Taylor under center. In theory a dynamic down-field weapon, Mitchell won consistent offseason praise from the Jets\u2019 coaching staff and media. His boom\/bust skill-set makes him best suited to a secondary role in both real life and fantasy, but it\u2019s a role with the upside outcome of WR4 status. In fantasy drafts, Mitchell is going as a WR5\/6. He\u2019s a late-round freebie.<\/p>\n
If Mitchell begins training camp as the No. 2 wideout on paper, in practice it could quickly become No. 30 overall pick Omar Cooper Jr. Initially an outside, down-field specialist, Hoosier Cooper kicked into the slot for 2025 and enhanced his production, booming from 28\/594\/7 to 69\/937\/13. He proved to be an after-the-catch force in the process, racking up slipped tackles while being amongst the Big 10 leaders in tacked-on yardage. That versatile route tree and skill-set gives Cooper a long-term WR2 ceiling, and perhaps even WR1. But as for 2026, if you are not the No. 1 weapon in this offense, you will be hard pressed to be a top-36 player on a weekly basis. Cooper is a WR4\/5 who will likely struggle for more.<\/p>\n
The biggest question mark is first-round TE Kenyon Sadiq. Famed for his ridiculous seam speed and athleticism but noted for his muted college production, the 21-year-old is the kind of player who needed to land with the \u201cright franchise.\u201d The Jets are anything but, but perhaps \u201cdevelopment\u201d will prove to be an overrated concept for a tight end with 4.39 speed. For all his supposed \u201cquestion marks,\u201d Sadiq is already a refined route runner, one who seems capable of chewing up man coverage from the jump. It\u2019s just fair to wonder if the Jets have the blocking, play-calling and quarterback play to get him loose over the middle of the field. Boasting boundless long-term upside, Sadiq\u2019s near-term prospects are probably those of a pop-up TE2 streamer.<\/p>\n
\u25b6 Running Game<\/p>\n
RB: Breece Hall, Braelon Allen, Isaiah Davis
OL (L-R): Olu Fashanu, Dylan Parham, Josh Myers, Joe Tippmann, Armand Membou<\/p>\n
In contract limbo for an impressively lengthy period of time, Breece Hall suddenly has peace in the form of a three-year, $43.5 million extension. While embattled head coach Aaron Glenn is amusingly talking up a \u201cthree-headed monster\u201d at running back, Hall\u2019s contract is all the evidence you need to know that\u2019s not going to happen.<\/p>\n
Coming off his first 1,000-yard campaign on the ground, Hall\u2019s 2025 receptions took a major tumble for the second consecutive season. A dysfunctional overall offensive environment was surely to blame, but it does create questions heading in to 2026. Can Hall rebound as a pass catcher? Can he prevent Braelon Allen from carving out a goal-line role? Will any of this matter at all when Frank Reich is the play-caller and Geno Smith is the quarterback? It\u2019s admittedly easy to be pessimistic. It\u2019s also ultimately difficult to be too bearish on a three-down talent who will be on the field for 70-75 percent of the snaps, and probably the vast majority of the high-value fantasy plays.<\/p>\n
For his part, Braelon Allen has bulked up to an absurd 250 pounds after his injury-shortened 2025. There\u2019s no secret what the hope is: Pound the rock on early downs, and hope some of the carries come at the goal line. It\u2019s not the worst plan. It\u2019s also not the best. That archetype rarely results in steady fantasy value. It usually just hurts the backs getting vultured. Allen would form an interesting committee with Isaiah Davis were Hall to go down with injury, but the 2026 Jets are not going to be the kind of offense creating fantasy value for specialists.<\/p>\n
The third \u201cmonster\u201d in Glenn\u2019s mind, Davis can catch a pass, but it\u2019s difficult to believe he will regularly do so at Hall\u2019s expense after the offseason\u2019s contract developments. Davis\u2019 2026 upside is being a future committee member in the unfortunate event of a Hall absence.<\/p>\n
\u25b6 2026 New York Jets Win Total<\/p>\n
DraftKings Over\/Under: 5.5
Pick: Over (-120) under is +100<\/p>\n
The Jets play in a division with a pair of heavyweights in Buffalo and New England, but also a fellow lightweight in the Dolphins. For as bad as Miami appears to be, the Jets were worse last season, \u201cearning\u201d themselves a fourth-place schedule. That\u2019s how they find themselves with the fifth easiest slate in the league, per Warren Sharp. They also have three winnable matchups in their first seven games, @TEN, vs. CLE and vs. MIA. That sets up a springboard for a decent start, and a plausible path to the over on 5.5. God help me, but that\u2019s the way I\u2019ll lean here for one of the league\u2019s worst teams … is what I wrote before I remembered everything else I wrote. This roster, very much including on defense, simply isn\u2019t good to overachieve to the extent of winning six games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was tempting to believe things couldn\u2019t possibly get worse for the Jets heading into 2025. Seasoned fans…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":810573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85],"class_list":["post-810572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}