For pro-tank New York Jets fans, Sunday of Week 16 was a happy afternoon of football-watching.

The Jets fell 29-6 to the New Orleans Saints, while the Tennessee Titans stomped all over the grave of the freshly eliminated Kansas City Chiefs. As a result, the Jets have moved up one spot from the fifth overall pick to the fourth.

There is a catch, though.

Sunday wasn’t all good for the Jets’ tanking dreams.

2026 NFL draft order update

Here is how the draft order is shaping up after Week 16’s Sunday games:

New York Giants: 2-13 (.530 SOS)

Las Vegas Raiders: 2-13 (.545)

Cleveland Browns: 3-12 (.490)

New York Jets: 3-12 (.539)

Arizona Cardinals: 3-12 (.575)

Tennessee Titans: 3-12 (.575)

Washington Commanders: 4-11 (.500)

New Orleans Saints: 5-10 (.496)

Cincinnati Bengals: 5-10 (.516)

Miami Dolphins: 6-9 (.492)

The good news for Jets fans is that the team rose one spot thanks to Tennessee’s victory.

The bad news is that it has become a little bit tougher for the Jets to climb the board any further.

The B plot to Sunday’s tanking action was the strength of schedule tiebreaker race between the Jets and a pair of 2-win teams ahead of them in the draft order (who remained 2-win clubs after losing on Sunday): the Giants and the Raiders. Entering Sunday, the Jets’ SOS was tied with that of the Giants at .536 apiece, while they held a 3.0-game lead over the Raiders (.548).

Things were shaping up for the Jets to have a good chance of usurping either team in the draft order if they were to end up tied in the standings.

Unfortunately for the Jets, the SOS-related games did not go their way on Sunday. The Giants’ SOS dropped to .530, while the Jets’ SOS increased to .539. Record-wise, the Giants’ schedule owns a record of 134-119-1, compared to the Jets’ 137-117-1, giving the Giants a 2.5-game advantage after entering Sunday tied.

This means that, as things currently stand, the Jets would lose a tiebreaker to the Giants.

There are still two weeks for the Jets to catch back up, though. In fact, they can make up some ground tonight. If the San Francisco 49ers defeat the Indianapolis Colts as 5.5-point favorites on Monday Night Football, the Jets will inch a half-game closer to the Giants (whereas a Colts win would push the Jets a half-game further).

Meanwhile, the Las Vegas Raiders also saw their SOS drop slightly from .548 to .545. The gap between the record of the Raiders’ schedule (138-115-1) and that of the Jets’ schedule (137-117-1) has been sliced from 3.0 games to 1.5 games in the matter of a week.

While the Jets would benefit in their SOS race against the Giants if the 49ers win tonight, it would have the opposite effect on their race against the Raiders. The Jets will gain a half-game of separation from the Raiders with a Colts win, while the Raiders will close to within one game of the Jets with a 49ers win.

These tiebreaker races are critical because the odds are strong that the Jets will end up tied with one of these teams at the end of Week 17. The Jets have opened as 12.5-point home underdogs against the 12-3 Patriots, while the Giants and Raiders will face off in Las Vegas, which probably means that one of these teams will win in Week 17 (although both offenses are so bad that a tie cannot be ruled out).

The other obstacle for the Jets is the Cleveland Browns. The Browns have clinched the SOS tiebreaker over the Jets, so the Jets can only leapfrog Cleveland by finishing with an outright worse record.

The Browns finish the season with a home game against Pittsburgh (9-6) and a road game against Cincinnati (5-10). Pro-tank Jets fans will need to pray for the Dawg Pound to pull out at least one gritty AFC North win to open the door for New York to climb up the draft board.

This is an especially important development for the Jets’ future, as the Browns, along with the Raiders, are one of two teams in the quarterback market who are currently projected to pick ahead of the Jets. With Shedeur Sanders tossing eight picks and completing 55.1% of his passes across five starts, nothing has happened to dissuade the Browns from selecting a quarterback.

For this reason, it would arguably be preferable for Jets fans to root for the Raiders to defeat the Giants next week. Leap-frogging the Raiders would at least put the Jets in the No. 2 hole among quarterback-needy teams.

If the order finished Giants-Browns-Jets in the top three, the Jets would be guaranteed one of the top three quarterback prospects in a class where there are only projected to be three first-round-worthy passers: Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza, Oregon’s Dante Moore, and Alabama’s Ty Simpson (although each of their draft decisions remains TBD).

Plus, the Giants’ presence in the No. 1 hole as a non-quarterback-needy team would open an avenue for the Jets to trade up and leapfrog the Browns if they are smitten with a particular prospect. If the top three were Raiders-Browns-Jets, then the Jets would likely be stuck with the third quarterback.

There is almost nothing exciting about the Jets on the football field right now (besides Austin McNamara’s punts), but the tank race is turning into one hell of a thrill ride. At least we have that, right?