The consensus is the New York Jets will draft at least one quarterback next weekend and\/or in the 2027 NFL Draft. But after acquiring veteran Geno Smith from the Raiders and subsequently naming him the starter, the Green & White have several options at their disposal.<\/p>\n
“He’s a guy that comes in and can kind of be that bridge-type quarterback until you get the next guy,” said NFL Network insider Tom Pelissero of Smith. “Whether it’s this year’s draft or whether that’s next year’s draft or whether that’s sometime beyond, although I certainly think the plan would be in one of these next two drafts. You have 5 firsts to get a quarterback here.”<\/p>\n
The Jets have a bounty of picks the next two drafts \u2013 19 in all, 8 first- and second-rounders, and 5 first-rounders. They will be a key player starting next weekend with four selections in the top 44 overall (Nos. 2 and 16 in Round 1 and Nos. 33 and 44 in Round 2). The Smith acquisition, which featured a late-round pick swap and became official on March 13, gave the Jets a proven veteran starter and came at a low financial cost. The Jets will reportedly pay Smith $3.3 million this season.<\/p>\n
Young QBs in the Pipeline
“I think he is a young 35, so I don’t think we’re at a drop-off point,” said NFL Network insider Judy Battista of Smith. “And again, I think he’s motivated. \u2026 It’s also a smart business move. You’re not using your draft capital, you have plenty of money to spend, but you’ve got other needs. You don’t need to spend big and you’ve got competent quarterback play, and they’ve got all of their draft capital still to use this year and next year.”<\/p>\n
Shortly after the draft opens, the Raiders are expected to make Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza the No. 1 overall selection. Then the Jets will go on the clock and most pundits believe they will choose between Texas Tech edge David Bailey and Ohio State hybrid Arvell Reese. They could consider a handful of others, but the prevailing notion is the Jets won’t begin to have a conversation about quarterback until No. 16 overall or with the first pick in the second round.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The consensus is the New York Jets will draft at least one quarterback next weekend and\/or in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[34086,22597,78771,85,9,24,55,54,12,56,61900],"class_list":{"0":"post-201674","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-2026-nfl-draft","9":"tag-draft","10":"tag-draft-previews","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","15":"tag-new-york-city-news","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-path-to-the-2026-draft"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}