32 Teams in 32 Days: New York Jets

Cover photo taken from Imagn Images.

Welcome to 32 Teams in 32 Days, a daily series leading up to kickoff of the 2025 NFL season where I preview every team in the league as decided by a wheel spin and project what their season will look like. You can keep up with everything right here.

The wheel once again wants to keep us in the same division as we head to the eternally grief-stricken Meadowlands where the New York Jets are entering their 785th new era of the century.

I’m going to try to keep this brief seeing as though I’m running late on this and the Jets are the Jets. But I’ll also start by saying that I like what this franchise has done. Rebounding from the two-year Aaron Rodgers debacle wasn’t going to be easy, but I think they’ve done all the right things so far.

Getting rid of GM Joe Douglas was long overdue, and though Robert Saleh got the short end of the Rodgers stick, it wound up working for New York as Aaron Glenn takes over the head coaching job. He was an awesome DC in Detroit and brought some serious juice to a unit that was decimated by injury and still wound up playing some solid ball down the stretch. He’s an all killer, no filler type of coach from the Dan Campbell tree, and I think that’s just the mentality that the Jets need.

That side of the ball figures to continue being New York’s strong suit with the addition of Steve Wilks as DC. It helps to have studs like Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams holding down the secondary and defensive line. The Jets were just 21st in defensive EPA/play a year ago, but I put that on coaching — the talent was there to be successful. The defensive line is what holds everything together, ranking in the top 10 in both pass rush and run stop win rates. It just never materialized in anything substantial.

If the Jets are to fully rebound from the damage that ARod caused them, they’ll have to figure out the other side of the ball. To be quite frank, I like pretty much everything they’re doing outside of quarterback. Bringing in Justin Fields on the QB equivalent of a prove-it deal is a solid idea in theory, but it certainly puts a ceiling on your offensive capabilities. For what it’s worth, the Jets offense ranked in 17th in EPA/play last year with Rodgers clocking in at 22nd among QBs. He was also 25th in QBR with a 48.0 mark while Fields was at just 50.8 in limited action last season with Pittsburgh. I love Justin and always will, but there’s little to no hope of him becoming a franchise quarterback at this point in his career. I wouldn’t mind being proven wrong.

The good thing for Fields is that the Jets have built some pretty solid offensive personnel. Garrett Wilson is a legit stud at WR, Breece Hall has plenty of juice out of the backfield — and the young buck Braelon Allen is coming on strong behind him — two first-round tackles man the line in Olu Fashanu and Armand Membou, and Mason Taylor has some promise at TE in his rookie season. I worry about the rest of the pass catchers — Tyler Johnson and Josh Reynolds don’t exactly make for the greatest WR2 and 3 — but this is a run-first team with Fields and Hall anyways.

To put it plainly, this is a rebuild that’s off to a solid start, but is seemingly lacking an early direction. We’ll see if they can find any with Fields under center.

X-Factor: QB Justin Fields

As such, Fields is the easy answer for the Jets’ X-factor. If he plays up to his highest potential — which is being effective and efficient as both a runner and a passer — New York could flirt with being .500 this season. It just remains to be seen if he can do that consistently over the course of a season.

Team MVP: WR Garrett Wilson

Garrett Wilson deserved every penny of the four-year, $130 million contract extension he received a few weeks ago (so did Sauce Gardner for that matter, even after a down year). In his three short years in the NFL, he’s already become one of the most athletic, well-rounded receivers in football, consistently flexing his ridiculous catch radius and elite speed. The start to his career reminds me of Terry McLaurin, notching 1,000 yards or more in each season despite average to subpar QB play. Last year was his best yet with career highs in yards (1,104) and touchdowns (7). I don’t know if those numbers will improve with Fields in over Rodgers considering the whole offensive identity is going to change. I considered putting Sauce or Quinnen here instead for that reason. But I’ll give the nod to Texas’ finest and hope that reuniting with his Buckeye QB bears some good results.

Breakout Candidate: WR Malachi Corley

If anyone is going to emerge as the WR2 in this offense, I think it’ll be last year’s third rounder Malachi Corley. He was a stud at Western Kentucky, using his size and speed to become a solid slot receiver. He barely got any touches last year — one of which being when he dropped the ball before crossing the plane — and wound up missing the back half of the season, but he has the skillset to be an effective piece of this offense. More than anything, I just see that happening more than Reynolds, Johnson or Allen Lazard being reliable targets. But, I do think Braelon Allen will become a solid, reliable piece of this offense as well, especially if Hall does wind up being traded like he’s always rumored to be.

Record Prediction: 6-11

It’s not the hardest schedule, but it certainly ain’t easy either. And considering how the Jets are on the wrong side of being mid, this feels like an appropriate record: an improvement from last year, but nothing crazy. Again, I like the direction this team is going in, but this just isn’t the year.

Next Up: Cleveland Browns