{"id":216391,"date":"2026-05-01T06:57:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T06:57:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/216391\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T06:57:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T06:57:28","slug":"jets-pick-up-fifth-year-option-on-edge-will-mcdonald-iv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/216391\/","title":{"rendered":"Jets Pick Up Fifth-Year Option on Edge Will McDonald IV"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Jets have picked up the fifth-year option on former first-round pick <a class=\"nfl-o-cta--link nfl-o-cta--underline\" style=\"word-break:break-word\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorkjets.com\/team\/players-roster\/will-mcdonald-iv\/\" title=\"Will McDonald IV\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Will McDonald IV<\/a>&#8216;s rookie contract.<\/p>\n<p>McDonald (6-4, 245) led the team last season with 8 sacks while becoming just the fifth Jet since 1982 \u2013 when sacks became an official NFL statistic \u2013 to register at least 8 sacks in back-to-back seasons. One of 12 players to hold an active streak of consecutive 8-plus sack campaigns, McDonald is also one of only 15 players to record back-to-back 8-plus sack seasons within their first three years in the league. He recorded a career-high 4 sacks and 9 pressures in a Week 10 win over the Browns. Over the past two years, McDonald is one of eight players who have totaled five multi-sack performances.<\/p>\n<p>Against Tampa in Week 3, McDonald became the first player in franchise history to block a field goal and return it for a touchdown. The block of a 43-yard field goal attempt and subsequent 50-yard return for a score late in the fourth quarter was one of the top plays in the NFL last season.<\/p>\n<p>A first-round pick (No. 15 overall) of the Jets in 2023, the Iowa State product has appeared in 47 games (29 starts) and amassed 21.5 sacks, 46 TFL and 3 FF.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Jets have picked up the fifth-year option on former first-round pick Will McDonald IV&#8216;s rookie contract. McDonald&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216392,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[85,9,24,55,54,12,56,1526,21631],"class_list":["post-216391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-latest-headlines","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-news","tag-ny","tag-transactions","tag-will-mcdonald-iv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216391","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=216391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}