New York Jets: Questions, Questions Everywhere

A new season is about to get underway for the New York Jets, and with it come questions. Every season brings new questions, but this season just feels different in the magnitude of uncertainty surrounding the team. Some years, like in the 2010 season, the Jets had established veterans at most key positions. The talent was in place, the coaching was sound, at least on the defense, and we knew going in this was a team that, barring catastrophic injuries, was built to compete at the highest levels. Other seasons, like many of the last 15 years, the talent level was very low, the coaching was abysmal, and we knew going in that the team had very little chance to succeed. This year feels different. There seem to be questions at almost every level of the organization. Uncertainty seems extremely high. If most of the major questions are resolved to the upside, this could be an interesting and competitive team. If most of the major questions are resolved to the downside, this could be another season where the Jets are vying for one of the top spots in the upcoming NFL draft. Let's take a look at some of the most pressing questions facing the Jets. Coaching It all starts at the top. Head coach Aaron Glenn had a concerning year in 2025, his first as an NFL head coach. Coming into the season cocky and adversarial with all who dared question him, Glenn was soon humbled by a team that ended up in the conversation for worst team in the NFL. When the trade deadline approached it was clear the team was really, really bad, and the Jets threw in the towel on the 2025 season by trading their two best players on defense, Quinnen Williams and Sauce Gardner. At that point, the defense utterly collapsed, putting forth one noncompetitive performance after another. A large part of this was clearly a lack of talent, but the coaching can't completely escape blame. Once the season was over Glenn massively overhauled the coaching staff, bringing in new coaches at every level, including replacing the offensive and defensive coordinators.It is a bit odd for a head coach to need to fire nearly every coach he handpicked himself just a year earlier. Now Glenn may be on the hotseat. He likely will not survive another disastrous season. Can Glenn learn from his many mistakes of 2025? Will his new coaching staff prove to be more competent than last year's crew? Is defensive playcalling really a Glenn superpower? Will the Jets look better prepared? Will they at times look like they have outcoached the opposition? Will they be better tacklers? Will the young players successfully develop? The head coach is a big part of any team's success. Glenn did not look the part of a top head coach last season. Heck, he didn't look the part of a competent head coach last season. How he learns from his mistakes and grows as a head coach will go a long way to determining the level of success or failure the Jets achieve this year. OFFENSE Quarterback Last season the Jets had an atrocious Justin Fields, a washed up Tyrod Taylor, and a practice squad level Brady Cook share the quarterback position. It did not go well. All three of those guys are now gone. In their place the Jets have acquired veteran Geno Smith via trade and rookie Cade Klubnik in the draft. Klubnik is probably not ready to play extensive snaps this season. That puts it all on Geno Smith. Geno Smith enjoyed a modicum of success with the Seattle Seahawks from 2022 through 2024 before the Seahawks decided to move on after the 2024 season. Former Seahawks head coach latched on with the Las Vegas Raiders, and he brought Geno Smith with him as the new Raiders starting quarterback. It did not go well. In 2025 Geno Smith started 15 games for the Raiders and led them to a 2-13 record in those games. He led the NFL in sacks and interceptions, an unfortunate duo of leading stats for Smith. Smith posted just 3025 passing yards and a career low 34 QBR. It was a bad performance for Smith, but there were pretty significant mitigating factors. Smith played behind arguably the worst offensive line in the NFL. His leading receivers were Brock Bowers, who was hobbled by injuries much of the season, Jakobi Meyers, who was traded after just seven games, and Tre Tucker. This was a terrible offensive environment. Any quarterback would have struggled. One season prior Smith led the Seahawks to a 10 – 7 record while passing for more than 4300 yards. The question now becomes, what can Smith produce for the Jets? Certainly the Jets will provide Smith a significantly better offensive line. Barring significant injuries the Jets should also provide Smith with better weapons. Unless the Jets suffer a rash of major injuries Smith should be better in 2026, but how much better? Smith will turn 36 years old this October. Age related decline is likely already taking place. Smith's QBR has declined in each of the last three years. At this point Smith's ceiling is likely something like a league average starting quarterback, which would be a major improvement on the dreck the Jets have been trotting out there in recent years. The question is, what is the floor? The answer will go a long way to determining the Jets' fate in 2026. Offensive Line The offensive line has relatively few questions, a refreshing change from the recent past. Center Josh Myers is subpar, and new guard Dylan Parham is coming off a down year after a pretty good 2024. Will Parham rebound? Guard Joe Tippman is better than average and still improving. The two tackles, Armand Membou and Olu Fashanu, are young, ascending and talented. The depth isn't great, but that is a league wide problem at offensive line. Bottom line, this is likely to be at least a league average unit with potential to develop into much better than average. Provided they avoid too many injuries, if the Jets offense fails, it is unlikely the offensive line will be a significant culprit. Running Backs Like the offensive line, this is a young and solid unit. Starter Breece Hall is a borderline top ten back. The perennially overlooked Isaiah Davis has quietly produced excellent play as Hall's backup. He may be capable of more. Braelon Allen is the primary question here. Touted as a talented power back when he was drafted two years ago, Allen has failed to impress in his two years in the NFL. Now in his third year and coming into camp bigger and stronger than ever, this feels like a make or break season for Allen. Can he live up to prior expectations and develop into one of the better power backs in the NFL? If he does the Jets might have a running game that goes a long way towards taking the pressure off Geno Smith. Wide Receivers As usual, this group boils down to Garrett Wilson and a whole lot of questions. What seems different this year is the upside appears significantly greater. Adonai Mitchell has been unable to put it all together since he was drafted two years ago. He was buried on the Indianapolis Colts depth chart to start his career, then came over to the Jets in the Sauce Gardner trade last year. With Garrett Wilson sidelined by injury, Adonail Mitchell became the de facto WR1 for the Jets the rest of the season, and he did not thrive in that role. In eight games with the Jets Mitchell produced just two games with more than three receptions and just two games with more than 43 receiving yards. He caught just 41% of his targets, produced an abysmal 5.2 yards per target, and his quarterbacks had an unholy 41 passer rating throwing to Mitchell. Those are frighteningly bad numbers for a wide receiver, but there was one huge mitigating factor. The starting quarterbacks for Mitchell were the aforementioned Justin Fields (one game), Tyrod Taylor (three games) and Brady Cook (four games). There is no doubt those quarterbacks hurt the performances of every receiver on the Jets. The question is, what can Mitchell be with a competent starter? Rumors out of 2026 training camp are optimistic about Mitchell for 2026, but until we actually see it when the games count, Mitchell remains something of a mystery who struggles with contested catches, drops and physical coverage. Rookie Omar Cooper is penciled in as the likely WR3 for this team, but he had a quiet training camp and there are questions as to how NFL ready he will be out of the gate. Isaiah Williams is a nice story who has worked his way up the depth chart and is challenging Omar Cooper for the WR3 spot. Can he be a difference maker in the NFL? Probably not, but we have yet to see the extent of his upside. Arian Smith and Tim Patrick aren't so much question marks as afterthoughts. If the Jets need to rely on either of these two for significant roles in the passing game that will spell trouble. Tight Ends The Jets tight ends are nothing but question marks. Rookie Kenyon Sadiq was selected by the Jets with the 16th overall pick in the 2026 NFL draft. That kind of draft capital spent on a tight end is rare and usually presages great expectations. Unfortunately Sadiq missed virtually the entire offseason and is now playing catch up. We are unlikely to see Sadiq in a major role early on in the season given how behind he is with the offense. The question is, how quickly can Sadiq catch up and can he deliver the kind of game changing results the Jets think he's capable of this season, or will we have to wait another year to see Sadiq's upside? Second year tight end Mason Taylor will continue as the Jets TE1, at least until Sadiq is ready. Taylor had a serviceable but uninspiring year in 2025, struggling with drops and failing to produce many big plays. The question is, how much more can he be? The Jets drafted Taylor to be a difference maker. Tight ends often struggle as rookies, but by the second year you often start to see the upside. Can Taylor produce a second year leap? DEFENSE Safeties The 2025 Jets had a horrendous collection of safeties. The Jets tried to address that by bringing in Minkah Fitzpatrick and Dane Belton. Fitzpatrick is obviously a top talent. The question is, at age 29 is he in decline? Fitzpatrick spent a lot more time close to the line of scrimmage last year, and his performance rebounded over a down year the year prior. Is Fitzpatrick mostly a guy the Jets play close to the line of scrimmage now? If so, who can play the deep safety role? Andre Cisco was brought in last season to fill that role, but he has been just plain bad as a deep safety his entire career. Cisco sports an unsightly 120 passer rating when targeted for his career (Yikes!). Relying on him to be the last line of defense is ill advised. Newly acquired Dane Belton had a great camp, but he is a guy you want near the line of scrimmage. Playing Belton deep seems like an option fated for misadventure. The final option is second year safety Malachi Moore, who seemingly has fallen out of favor with the Jets. Bottom line here: there are big questions as to who will provide the last line of defense for the Jets. Fitzpatrick seemingly does not want the role and may be aging out of it, and every other option seems to invite disaster. Cornerbacks This is another position with nothing but questions. The starters appear to be Brandon Stephenson, Azareye'h Thomas and Jarvis Brownlee. Stephenson is the only established starting cornerback in that group. However, he is established in less than an ideal way. Stephens has established that he is not a starting caliber cornerback. Last season Stephens allowed a 134 passer rating when targeted (double yikes!). Can he develop into a better cornerback? Not likely. Stephens will turn 29 years old in December. At that age he is more likely to already be in decline than to be ascendant. Brownlee was surprisingly effective in seven games in the slot with the Jets last season, allowing just 5.4 yards per target and an 84 passer rating. If he could perform like that in the long run that would be outstanding, but Brownlee has just 18 NFL starts under his belt and his prior work with the Titans was not nearly as promising. It's difficult to know what to expect out of Brownlee. The same goes for Thomas, who was quite good in just five starts as a rookie last season, allowing just an 84 passer rating and 48% completion percentage. It's a very small sample, and Thomas has a pretty major known weakness in his pedestrian speed. With less than ideal deep safety options backing him up, that lack of speed could become Thomas' downfall, but if he can hold up as well as he did in his few starts last year, the Jets may have something. The primary backups at cornerback, Nahshon Wright and DeAngelo Ponds, provide more questions than answers. Ponds is very small for an NFL cornerback. In addition, like Sadiq, he has missed nearly the entire offseason and is playing catch up. Ponds is unlikely to play a major role early on. Who knows when or if he will take on a starting role this season? If he does, who knows if he can hold up in coverage against NFL receivers? Wright led the NFL in interceptions last season with five, but when he wasn't intercepting passes he was getting burned a lot. Wright, who turns 28 years old in September, earned a starting role for the first time in his career last year with the Bears. He certainly was a playmaker for the Bears, but he also was problematic in coverage. Wright gave up 813 yards in coverage and allowed a very poor 8.3 yards per target. Other than interceptions Wright offers very little as a cornerback. Can he continue to force turnovers for the Jets? Linebackers The Jets brought in Demario Davis in free agency after Jamien Sherwood failed in 2025. Davis no doubt brings durability, sure tackling and effective overall play at linebacker. However, Davis will turn 38 years old in January and is pretty clearly in decline. After averaging double digits in both tackles for loss and QB hits from 2017 through 2023, Davis has averaged just 5.5 tackles for loss and two QB hits his last two seasons. In addition, after being above average in coverage most of his career, Davis is now a liability there, allowing a 110 passer rating last season. How much does Davis have left in the tank, and will he fall off a cliff this season? Who knows? As Billy Beane was told in Moneyball, "we're all told at some point in time that we can no longer play the children's game … some of us are told at eighteen, some of us are told at forty, but we're all told." Jamien Sherwood had a breakout to the upside in 2024, but he fell back with a thud in 2025, wilting under the pressure of being THE GUY at linebacker. Now Sherwood has relinquished that role to Davis. Will he return to his prior form of 2024? EDGE The Jets had a very bad pass rushing group in 2025 with Will McDonald the only decent pass rusher. They tried to address that weakness by bringing in Joseph Ossai and Kingsley Enagbare in free agency, while also drafting David Bailey with the 2nd overall pick in the 2026 NFL draft. However, Enagbare has never had more than 4.5 sacks in a season. Ossai has never had more than five. Ossai is also sidelined with a foot injury that will require multiple weeks to heal and could hobble him most of the season. Bailey by all counts looked very good in training camp, but he's a rookie who will likely take time developing into a force in the NFL. Can Enagbare improve his pass rush? Will Ossai be healthy and effective? Can Bailey thrive as a rookie? What can Will McDonald accomplish in a reduced role? Who knows? Nothing but question marks on the edge. Interior defensive line This appears to be a solid group. The main questions revolve around age related decline. Harrison Phillips turns 31 years old in January. David Onyemata turns 34 in November. Those are advanced years for NFL players, but neither player appears to be in serious decline thus far. Perhaps they need to take reduced snaps this year, but with young dudes like Jowon Briggs and T'Vondre Sweat more than capable starters, this group seems fairly deep and set up for success, barring multiple serious injuries. SPECIAL TEAMS The Jets seem in good shape at the returner positions with Isaiah Williams and Kene Nwangwu both well above average. Nwangwu, however, is always a question mark with his long injury history. Austin McNamara is one of the best punters in the NFL. No questions there as long as he stays healthy. At kicker the Jets had a close to automatic guy in Nick Folk last year. They chose to move on, probably because of his advanced age. That may prove to be a costly mistake. The Jets moved through a carousel of tryouts at kicker in the offseason. They ultimately claimed Blake Grupe on waivers and signed Jason Sanders to the practice squad. Neither option seems like a particularly safe bet. The Jets seem to concur, as they have continued to bring in kickers for tryouts even after bringing in Grupe. This position seems poised to implode on the Jets. Hopefully Grupe, or some undetermined other dude, proves me wrong.