Jets Will Likely Cling To Fanciful Playoff Hopes & Squander Trade Opportunities
The Jets’ 21-13 victory over Houston on Thursday night served as the proverbial sole lifesaver aboard a vessel that can clearly see the tip of an iceberg straight ahead.
While it would be inaccurate to go all Michael Ray Richardson on you with a “the ship be sinking” reference to the Jets (3-6), who can further course correct to their playoff destination with another win in Arizona on Sunday, the smarter decision would be to turn around, reassess the crew, and try the journey again next year.
I’m under no illusions that the Jets, who have been a headline machine with all their changes over the last month, will suddenly morph into sellers in advance of Tuesday’s NFL Trade Deadline. The organization has too much invested in this season and smart decisions aren’t exactly this franchise’s brand.
That’s a shame, because if there’s one area where New York General Manager Joe Douglas has excelled in during his otherwise disappointing five-plus years on the job, it’s been in extracting value for players he puts on the trade market. The two first-rounders he got from Seattle for safety Jamal Adams during the 2020 offseason and the three picks, including a 2, acquired from Carolina for quarterback Sam Darnold a year later will likely go down as his biggest highlights.
Douglas currently has a slew of pending free agents whom he could easily rent out to contending teams in need of immediate plug-ins or depth. The consideration on these theoretical trades could help replenish Gang Green’s Draft capital for when the next GM picks up the rebuild for a post-Aaron Rodgers era.
For example, cornerback D.J. Reed, ProFootballFocus.com’s second-highest graded cornerback in the NFL (minimum 200 snaps), could possibly yield a Day 2 Draft pick. Since we’re around the season’s midpoint, the cash payout to Reed for the remainder of 2024 shouldn’t be more than $5 million, a manageable number for a new team’s salary cap. Reed would be a tough player to lose for nothing in the upcoming free agent market, which makes keeping him around just to run out a losing string a crazy risk.
Another veteran who surely would be coveted is right tackle Morgan Moses, who, according to PFF, is one of seven tackles in the league with at least 200 pass block snaps who has not been responsible for a single sack this season. Again, Moses would come fairly cheap, as he would be playing out the remainder of the 1-year $5.5 million deal he signed in the offseason. That has to be worth something to a contender.
The above two players man premium positions, but perhaps no spot is as valued as quarterback, where Tyrod Taylor has rode the bench behind Rodgers all season. There are a bunch of teams in the playoff picture who are one fluky hit away from seeing their season go down in flames because of a serious downgrade if forced to turn to their backup QB. I wouldn’t want to rely on Tayor, whose penchant for holding the ball too long has made him injury prone in his own right, for 17 games, but he’s not a bad option as a placeholder. Given how often Lamar Jackson breaks down by year end, would the Ravens give up a fifth-round pick to place Taylor ahead of Josh Johnson on their depth chart? Taylor has $2.5 million of his scheduled $6 million compensation guaranteed for 2025, but that’s not such a heavy investment for this position that it should hinder his trade consideration.
The Jets player who had previously been mentioned most in trade rumors was wide receiver Mike Williams. For $10 million cash (including $1.7 million in per game roster bonuses) this season, Williams has delivered all of 12 receptions for 166 yards and zero touchdowns. A slow start was expected given his recovery from last season’s ACL injury, but his production hasn’t exactly been trending up with an increased snap count. He’s caught two balls for 21 yards over the last four games. Among the 106 receivers who have been targeted at least five times in that span, only two have posted a worse yards per route run metric, per PFF. As much as I’d like to see Douglas maximize what he can get at the trade deadline, what would Williams fetch now? A sixth-for-seventh swap? With Allen Lazard on Injured Reserve, the Jets might be better served letting Williams play his contract out and then spread out the dead money cap hits through the four void years.
In total, the Jets have 20 players who will be unrestricted free agents after the season, the 10th-most in the league, per Jason Fitzgerald of overthecap.com. That doesn’t include Rodgers or his wide receiver buddy Davante Adams, both of whom could end up elsewhere should the Jets go into a full blow-up model.
Just don’t expect the Jets to begin that process this week. The organization will likely cling until the bitter end the fantasy that this terribly coached team can go on a major run to put an end to their 14-year long playoff quest, the longest drought among all four major league sports.
It’s possible, but like almost every bet this franchise makes, it’s a bad one.