Getting on the free agency board before Monday’s 12 p.m. start time, the New York Jets re-signed linebacker Jamien Sherwood to a three-year, $45 million deal with $30 million guaranteed.
It is exciting for Jets fans to see New York re-sign the man who was voted team MVP by his teammates for the 2024 season. However, Sherwood came in much pricier than even the most optimistic projections.
Some reports claimed Sherwood could demand up to $12 million per year, which was already a divisive number among fans and media members. To see him check in at $15 million per year – fourth-highest among linebackers – is quite the shock. His $30 million in guaranteed money also ranks fourth.
Linebacker is considered a non-premium position by the NFL, as evidenced by the way the position gets paid. As of Monday morning, there are only 11 linebackers earning a salary of at least $10 million, and Sherwood is one of them – the same Sherwood who, before 2024, had seven career starts across three seasons.
There’s no way around it – this is a lofty contract at a non-premium position for a player with only one year of production. The bar is high for Sherwood to make this contract worth the Jets’ while. He must continue to be a top 10-15 linebacker (at the very least) throughout the duration of the contract to justify Darren Mougey’s first large investment as an NFL general manager.
The good news is that Sherwood is in a great position to pull that off. He only just turned 25 years old in January and has limited mileage on his NFL tires. As a 25-year-old who converted from safety out of college and still only has 23 NFL starts, there is room for Sherwood to get even better.
And that’s saying something, because Sherwood is already excellent.
What made his 2024 season really stand out is the balance between his coverage and his run defense. While Sherwood is a converted safety who is undersized for the linebacker position (6-foot-2, 216 pounds), which helps his coverage, it doesn’t compromise his run defense.
In 2024, Sherwood ranked 13th-best out of 64 qualified linebackers with only 0.78 yards allowed per coverage snap. He also allowed zero touchdowns on 558 coverage snaps, the fourth-most coverage snaps without allowing a touchdown among linebackers. Simultaneously, Sherwood still ranked 10th among linebackers in run stops (34).
The man is coming off one heck of a season. If he can do it yearly over the next three seasons, the Jets will not regret this deal.
But there is a chance Sherwood could add a whole new element to his game, and this might be the hidden reason why New York handed him such a lofty contract.
The Jets project to run a blitz-heavy defense under Aaron Glenn and Steve Wilks. Sherwood has played his whole career in Robert Saleh and Jeff Ulbrich’s blitz-light defense. However, in his rare blitz opportunities, Sherwood has been incredibly efficient. Sherwood has 12 total pressures on just 53 career pass-rush snaps, a pressure rate of 22.7% (the 2024 league average for LB was 17.5%). He also has 2.5 sacks (3 total), which gives him a 5.7% sack rate (versus 3.1% league average for LB).
This hidden ability in Sherwood’s game gives him the potential to become even more impactful than he already is. If Sherwood can maintain those excellent rates on an amplified number of blitz opportunities, he will make a major impact as a pass rusher.
For instance, Detroit Lions linebacker Jack Campbell logged 118 pass-rush snaps under Glenn in 2024, the sixth-most among linebackers. If Sherwood translated his 22.7% pressure rate and 5.7% sack rate on 118 pass-rush snaps, he’d accumulate about 26 total pressures and seven sacks. Those marks would have ranked fifth and second, respectively, among linebackers last season.
Perhaps the Jets (and other teams) see this potential in Sherwood and factored it into their evaluation of his value.
