The New York Jets have made headlines this week for all the wrong reasons. Owners of a disastrous 3-8 record, the team has watched its Super Bowl aspirations vanish as underperformance and undisciplined play as the longest playoff drought in professional sports will continue for yet another season.
With sweeping changes for the franchise as they look for a new head coach, a new general manager, and even temporarily at the ownership level, New York will have to chose from one of three paths forward in order to rebuild the team. Which was they proceed will depend largely on the individuals at the helm of these three positions.
Path No. 1: Run it back/Push the chips to the center of the table
The least likely and perhaps most misguided method, there is some reason to believe that the Jets may consider a repeat of what they did last offseason; going all-in in hopes of a new coaching staff being able to maximize the potential of what is a talented roster on paper.
While the Jets will have some holes to fill, the core of the roster is still objectively strong. Sauce Gardner, Garrett Wilson, Breece Hall, and the currently injured Jermaine Johnson are all foundational pieces on rookie contracts.
Furthermore, the Jets have stars like Quinnen Williams, Quincy Williams, Davante Adams, and Michael Carter II under contract, and could lean on young players this year’s rookies Olu Fashanu and Malachi Corley to help fill important gaps.
There will be losses for sure. Stud cornerback D.J. Reed is set to hit free agency and New York probably won’t have the resources to round out the roster and retain him if they follow this path. C.J. Mosley will probably be a cap casualty given his age, injury-plagued season, and the encouraging play of his replacement, Jamien Sherwood.
Point is, it’s not hard to squint at the roster and believe there are enough foundational pieces here, but there’s one big caveat. The franchise signal caller, soon-to-be 41-year-old Aaron Rodgers, has looked washed up this season. Without a reliable quarterback under center, the team will not be a true contender, so unless the Jets’ new leadership truly believes a Rodgers rebound is likely this path likely has no legs.
Lastly, there’s the Rodgers contract to consider. If the Jets cut bait on the future Hall of Famer they would take a dead cap hit of $49 million in 2025, a tough pill to swallow for sure. However, by letting him linger for another year, the Jets still take the $49 million cap hit in 2025 plus taking on additional dead cap in 2026. Simply put it may just be better to rip the bandaid off.
Path No. 2: Re-Tool
More likely than path one is the second path the Jets could take, re-tooling the roster. Whether or not the Jets decide to take this path will depend greatly on how the new coaching staff and front office view the core of the roster, and whether or not the Jets will run a similar system that is catered to the returning players’ skillsets.
What this may look like is jettisoning older, higher priced veterans to eventually reap cap savings and recoup draft assets, while continuing to build around the aforementioned young core the Jets already have in place.
Ultimately, this probably means a change at QB, with a veteran “bridge” quarterback being giving the reins temporarily while also mentoring a high draft pick.
Other characteristics would be filling holes with unproven players, young reclamation projects, bargain-bin veterans. For example, open starting positions like the second starting outside corner, tight end, right tackle, and defensive tackle might be manned by dart throws like late round draft picks.
Some players to watch should the Jets take this approach would be cornerback Qwan’tez Stiggers and defensive tackle Leonard Taylor III as well as other draft picks and waiver wire claims as the Jet look to strike gold and find some diamonds in the rough to fill out the roster.
Short term, the roster imbalance and lack of depth would hinder any real contending chances unless the Jets get incredibly lucky. Long term the hope would be that this approach allows the team to reset around a young core that has already shown off talent and potential.
The risks associated with this are getting stuck in purgatory, not good enough to truly compete, and not bad enough to truly bottom out. The Jets have largely missed their golden opportunity to build around a core on rookie contracts as extensions for key players like Sauce Gardner, Garrett Wilson, Breece Hall, and Alijah Vera-Tucker will be coming due.
Missing on Zach Wilson hurt, but if the Jets can thread this needle for a season or two, they should be able to retain most of their top talent while resetting their window with a new QB on a rookie contract eventually taking over. They just can’t miss on the QB pick again, or else they’ll find themselves yet again in dire straits.
Path No. 3: A total rebuild
Another likely plan of attack the Jets couild take would be a full-scale tear down. That would mean cutting any and all veterans that would generate cap savings while simultaneously having a fire sale on their most prized assets.
The Jets will pursue this path if the team’s new leadership feels that the established young core is not enough, or that they won’t be in the position to retain enough of those key players once the roster is truly ready for contention. The earlier in the extension timeline a player is, the greater return he’ll provide on the trade market.
The Jets find themselves at this precipice largely because of Douglas’s key misses, and his willingness to use void years to sign veteran players at market value while manipulating cap hits by spreading them out over seasons the player will not be on the roster.
The Jets, via signings and restructures, have done this several times, essentially using future years’ cap space for the present roster. A prime example of this is C.J. Mosley’s contract which via restructures and extensions, has been manipulated several times in recent years. If cut this offseason, the Jets would take a dead cap charge of $16.4 million which is greater than his 2025 salary of $12.8 million.
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A new regime could see this as the opportunity to ride out the missteps of the previous leadership while molding the franchise in their image, hopefully rising to contention once the dust has cleared on Douglas’s dead cap follies. That would mean the team will part ways with several fan favorites, enduring a few more seasons of mediocrity along the way.
While not the most palatable for fans, it might make the most sense to completely start over, especially if the Jets’ meddling owner is sent overseas by President Trump, giving the new GM-coach tandem enough time to build a strong contender before his return.
The bottom line
All three paths have their potential pitfalls. While one can sell themselves on the logic on each path, what matters most is execution of the plan. That will be the biggest question the Jets will have to answer. Will they be able to bring in competent football people to run the team and implement strategy while staying out of their way? Only time will tell.
