Fourth-year linebacker Jamien Sherwood is one of the brighter spots from the New York Jets’ 2024 season. Serving as a full-time starter for the first time in his career due to C.J. Mosley’s injuries, Sherwood has emerged as one of the Jets’ best defensive players.
Still only 24 years old, Sherwood can be one of the Jets’ long-term building blocks defensively. However, he is set to become an unrestricted free agent after the season, and the Jets will have to compete against the rest of the NFL if they want him back.
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Should the Jets bring Sherwood back? If so, how much is he worth on the open market?
Let’s dig into Sherwood’s production in the 2024 season to figure out what type of contract he might command.
Jamien Sherwood’s 2024 stats
Pro Football Focus is fond of Sherwood’s performance this year. His 75.6 overall PFF grade ranks eighth-best among the 57 linebackers who have played at least 400 defensive snaps this season. It also makes him the highest-graded defender on the Jets.
Let’s dig deeper into various aspects of Sherwood’s game to see how he’s arrived to that level of play.
Coverage
Sherwood ranks 17th out of 57 qualified linebackers in PFF’s coverage grade (62.6).
One of Sherwood’s strengths in coverage is his ability to prevent yardage after the catch. He has yielded 5.3 YAC per reception, which ranks 13th-lowest out of 57 qualifiers.
However, Sherwood has been somewhat susceptible to allowing receptions downfield, ranking 32nd with 4.0 air yards allowed per reception. Jaxon Smith-Njigba gets behind him here, although he nearly makes the deflection.
Sherwood provides unique value with his ability to cover man-to-man. He has played the 15th-most man coverage snaps among linebackers (91) and earned an 82.0 PFF coverage grade on man coverage reps, ranking fifth-best at the position. Sherwood has done a good job of deterring targets in man-to-man situations; on his 91 man coverage snaps, he has only been targeted five times, yielding three catches for 14 yards. Watch him here as he drops off the line and picks up the TE, smoothly flipping his hips to stay attached downfield when the TE breaks inside.
On the negative side, Sherwood tends to be exploited in zone coverage. He ranks 38th out of 57 qualifiers with a 48.2 zone coverage grade at PFF. Sherwood has allowed 25 catches on 32 targets for 257 yards in zone coverage. It’s here where Sherwood struggles with allowing production downfield; he is allowing 5.1 air yards per reception in zone, which ranks 46th. Sherwood bites on Anthony Richardson’s subtle fake here and allows Richardson to zip the ball behind him.
Interestingly, Sherwood was off to a red-hot start in coverage. Through Week 6, he had an 87.0 coverage grade, trailing only Fred Warner at the position. Since then, his grade has stooped to 39.3, third-worst.
It will be fascinating to see which direction Sherwood trends over the final five games. We’ve seen the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Overall, though, the good outweighs the bad to this point. His full body of work pegs him as an above-average cover linebacker throughout the season so far. To maintain that, he must end his cold streak quickly.
Run defense
PFF is fond of Sherwood’s run defense, rating him seventh-best out of 57 qualifiers with an 82.8 run defense grade.
The grade is somewhat surprising, as Sherwood’s raw production against the run does not match his grade. He is 24th in run-stop rate (7.5%) and 37th in missed tackle rate against the run (13.4%).
I am going to be completely honest here. Sherwood’s elite run defense grade might be misleading.
For instance, his highest-graded game of the season was this past week’s game against Seattle, where he earned an elite 93.6 run defense grade (best of the week among linebackers). But he only made one tackle against the run, which was on a seven-yard gain for a first down. He also missed one tackle that led to a touchdown.
I watched all of the Jets’ other run stops against Seattle to see if Sherwood did anything off the stat sheet to help make those stops happen (thus improving his grade without improving his on-ball stats), but he was never remotely involved in the play. Something seems off. I have a hunch that PFF made a mistake while grading him in this game. After all, their grading is done subjectively by human analysts in a short period of time. The system is prone to mistakes.
If you take out the Seattle game, Sherwood was 12th out of 57 qualifiers with a 75.6 run defense grade through Week 12. I think this seems a little more accurate, as when you check the rest of Sherwood’s games, his grades more closely resemble his impact on the game. Still, it remains a far cry from his 24th-ranked run-stop rate and 37th-ranked missed tackle rate.
The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Sherwood is graded at an elite level but has middle-of-the-pack raw production. If you settle in between those two points, the best estimate is that he is a slightly above-average run defender.
His on-off impact seems to support that notion. The Jets allow 4.4 yards per rush attempt when Sherwood is off the field compared to 4.1 when he is on. That makes him a slight positive-impact run defender, albeit not as dominant as his grade suggests.
Sherwood, who has a background at safety and is slender for a linebacker at 216 pounds, is agile in the open field. He excels at evading offensive linemen climbing to block him at the second level, as he does on these plays.
However, Sherwood will miss his share of tackles, often due to him simply being overpowered, which could be a product of his relatively slight frame for the position.
Pass rush
The Jets have sent Sherwood after the quarterback on 31 snaps this season. It’s a very low total for a starting linebacker, ranking just 52nd at the position despite Sherwood ranking 19th in total defensive snaps (733). Sherwood blitzes on just 4.2% of his snaps, ranking 49th out of 57 qualified linebackers.
While Sherwood rarely blitzes, he has been incredibly efficient when doing so. It’s a small sample size, but Sherwood has a 25.8% pressure rate, ranking sixth-best out of 57 qualifiers. He has racked up eight total pressures on just 31 pass-rush snaps.
This gives Sherwood appealing upside in a defensive scheme that blitzes more heavily. The Jets have been one of the NFL’s lowest-blitzing teams in recent years, making coverage an immensely more important skill than blitzing for their linebackers. But if they switch to a more blitz-heavy scheme under a new coaching staff in 2025, Sherwood’s potential in this area could be fully unlocked. It would also likely provide him with more man-coverage reps and fewer zone-coverage reps.
Contract projection
A good starting point for Sherwood’s potential contract is his teammate, Quincy Williams.
Entering 2023, Williams was coming off a breakout fourth season in which he established himself as a quality starter, albeit not a star – a similar situation to Sherwood. Williams earned a three-year, $18 million deal with $9 million guaranteed. Among current linebacker contracts, it ties Williams for 30th in average annual value and 27th in total guarantees.
While it is likely that he remains in the same ballpark, Sherwood might command slightly more than Williams for a few reasons.
Firstly, Sherwood will be 25 next season while Williams was entering his age-27 season. On top of being two years younger, Sherwood enters free agency on a clear upward trajectory, suggesting more strong years are to come.
Sherwood was drafted as a developmental player transitioning to a new position, and he showed flashes in limited spurts as a backup for three years. When he got his first chance to start, he delivered. Compare this to Williams, who had multiple poor seasons as a starter under his belt before breaking out in 2022. This was a red flag that he may have had an outlier season and was due to regress (that did not turn out to be the case, but based on the way he was paid in free agency, teams certainly feared that).
Secondly, Sherwood’s 2024 production is better than Williams’ 2022 season in most facets, no matter what metrics you prefer to use for evaluating linebackers. Sherwood is averaging more tackles per game (8.9 to 7.1), has a higher overall PFF grade (75.6 to 55.2), is allowing fewer yards per cover snap (0.77 to 1.13), and has a lower missed tackle rate (13% to 14%).
It is also must be taken into account that the NFL’s salary cap inflates each year.
Considering all of these factors, I think it is likely that Sherwood will outdo Williams’ contract, although not to a degree that puts him among the NFL’s richest linebackers. My best guess is that he will command around $8 million per year on the open market. That would currently rank as the 17th-highest average annual value among linebackers, placing him between Dre Greenlaw and Kenneth Murray.
Should the Jets re-sign Sherwood?
If Sherwood falls in that $8 million range annually, I believe the Jets should attempt to re-sign him. That would be a reasonable price for what Sherwood brings to the table, and at 25 years old, the Jets would be locking him up for the heart of his prime. Should New York allow Sherwood to walk, it just creates another hole that needs to be filled in a defense that has already fallen far from his previous heights.
It’s not just about 2025. Save for completely unproven sixth-round pick Zaire Barnes, the Jets don’t have a future at linebacker in 2026 and beyond. Williams is entering the final season of his contract in 2025. Considering that Williams is a highly athleticism-reliant player who will be 30 years old in 2026, there is a reasonable chance he will not be viewed as a part of the Jets’ future after next season. Re-signing Sherwood long-term would give New York stability at the position, eliminating the potential of the position becoming a major weakness in 2026 if they fail to adequately replace the production of Sherwood and Williams.
One of the key factors here will be the Jets’ coaching hires on the defensive side of the ball. While Sherwood could conceivably fit well in any defensive scheme, I believe his skills would be maximized in a more blitz-heavy defense. This would give him more opportunities to tap into the incredible efficiency he has displayed as a blitzer. Additionally, blitz-heavy teams tend to be more man-heavy in coverage, which would allow Sherwood to do more of what he excels at (man coverage) and less of what he struggles with (zone coverage).
If Sherwood’s salary balloons into the eight-figure range, the Jets will have to consider whether it is worthwhile to commit that much money to an off-ball linebacker while they have pressing needs at more valuable positions. In 2025, the Jets will likely be searching for new starters at right tackle, cornerback, and defensive tackle. A new starting receiver will also be needed if Davante Adams does not return. At over $10 million per year, it might be best to let Sherwood walk and allocate that space elsewhere.
As with any of these discussions about players’ futures, it is best to withhold definitive judgments until the season concludes. Approximately 30% of the season still lies ahead. Sherwood’s value could drastically change by the end of 2024, whether it’s positively or negatively.
Over these next five games, I am fascinated to see whether Sherwood can end his cold streak in coverage and get back to posting the numbers he did earlier in the season. What he does in coverage over these next five games will go a long way toward determining his value on the open market.
For now, I view Sherwood as an appealing player for the Jets to try to re-sign if he can be had for seven figures per season. We shall see whether his outlook changes over the next five games.
