The Jets’ 2025 draft class is about identity
Reporting from the Atlantic Health Jets Center in Florham Park, NJ—Six feet and four inches of height raining blows on your head. Three hundred and thirty-four pounds smacking you in the mouth.
Most importantly, a no-nonsense attitude aiming to drive the opposition into the ground, only to stomp on the poor man who plays for pay, time and again.
If an NFL draft selection ever signaled the intent of a football team’s identity, it was this one. Aaron Glenn’s decision to draft Armand Membou No. 7 in the 2025 NFL draft assured everybody that nastiness is on the menu for the 2025 New York Jets.
“He’s mean, he’s nasty, he’s tough,” Glenn told the media Thursday night, shortly after he made his first draft selection as Jets head coach. “[He fits] what we’re trying to do on offense. He really fits what we’re trying to do, so it was a no-brainer.”
Aaron Glenn knows who he is
Who is Aaron Glenn, after all? Who exactly is this football individual?
Drafted No. 12 by Pete Carroll’s Jets in 1994, Glenn’s athleticism, defensive playmaking, and return abilities shot him up the draft board. At the same time, the Texas A&M cornerback has always been undersized.
Standing just 5-foot-9, Glenn’s shoulders developed a bit of a chip throughout the years.
Remember, the second-greatest cornerback in Jets history didn’t begin his professional career in the best light. He muffed three punts in his first preseason action, prompting fans and media pundits to wonder if the organization had made yet another first-round mistake.
Ultimately, Glenn did not return punts, but he did return kicks and play cornerback at a Pro Bowl level. Even Bill Parcells, who often preferred bigger corners like “My Man” Otis Smith, appreciated his aggressively trailing and undercutting outside-cornerback ways.
Although nobody can claim he’ll turn out to be a terrific NFL head coach, one thing is assuredly accurate: Aaron Glenn knows who he is.
Glenn’s confidence is apparent whether it’s rebounding from a three-muff debut or confronting the Big Tuna about a potential trade rumor. The Jets’ head ball coach not only possesses a specific identity, but he also proudly boasts it loudly.
The New York Jets’ 2025 draft class emulates exactly who Aaron Glenn is as a human.
A nuts-and-bolts offense
Membou brings the nastiness and identity. We all know what this Jets offense will be—even if many still unknowingly underestimate the drastic degree of change to come. Led by quarterback Justin Fields, the Jets’ offense will run the ball early, often, and all the damn time.
I’d be surprised if they didn’t lead the league in rush attempts. I’d be shocked if they don’t finish in the top three.
Fields’s legs make that idea happen. Couple that with Glenn’s thought process—how he’s riding the league’s QB-rushing evolution—and adding Membou to the right side of the offensive line is, indeed, a “no-brainer,” as Glenn said.
The Missouri product is 332 pounds of mauler. “Nastiness” is his middle name (if his mother allowed such a thing to happen at the time of birth), and “confidence” is his confirmation tagline.
“[The Jets] are getting a mauler in the run game and someone very consistent in the passing game,” Membou said shortly after the Jets selected him No. 7 overall. “Whatever they need me to do, doesn’t matter—just run behind me.”
Confident, much?
You better believe it, and it’s what Glenn wants. Membou is the classic right tackle mauler who suits a power-rushing and read-option offense.
As general manager Darren Mougey mentioned, they identified this kid as “comfortable in his own skin.” Again, words like these lend credence to the idea that this regime is serious about building the right culture while setting the correct identity.
The same can be said for second-round pick Mason Taylor, whose pedigree speaks for itself.
Here’s a kid who lives a football life. NFL Network’s tremendous “A Football Life” series is predicated on the idea that the Taylor Family experienced for decades: living the life of football. Led by Jason Taylor—the one-time Jet—Mason breathes the sport to a degree that “pigskin breath” is his life’s main cross to bear.
Even fourth-round pick Arian Smith fits the narrative. Despite entering the league with concerns about his hands, the Jets could not care less about outside noise.
Glenn’s crew drafted Smith before safety Malachi Moore, the latter of whom feels perfect for this Jets defense.
A firm defensive identity
Perhaps no selection emulates Glenn’s character more than Azareye’h Thomas, however.
Running a disappointing 4.58 forty-yard dash at Florida State’s Pro Day, Thomas deeply hurt his draft stock with that time. Yet, as unapologetic as ever, Glenn does not care about third-party opinions.
The Jets’ head coach wasn’t shy about explaining why he loved Thomas—that his profile fits what the Jets are seeking to scheme up defensively.
“[I care about] how disruptive you are at the line of scrimmage,” Glenn said about Thomas’s abilities. “He was one of the better ones coming out this year. When you just watch him and really study him, man, his hand placement, he has this move of not just a one-hand punch, but he has a two-hand punch that a lot of guys can’t do.”
Remember, only Brian Flores blitzed more than Aaron Glenn last season. The corners that suit Glenn’s blitz-happy ways are taller and more physical—particularly on the outside where hard press, trail, and bail are in the mix.
Standing 6-foot-1 with at-the-line physicality fits the bill.
Again, it’s about identity.
Could an unapologetic identity potentially get in the way of versatile success? Of course, it can. Even Glenn knows this.
Take the infamous Aaron Rodgers meeting, for instance. No matter what anybody thinks about what went down, or what was perceived to go down, coming from Rodgers’s mouth, Glenn’s reported actions are undoubtedly on brand.
Everything Glenn does is so on brand that it follows a like-minded theme that drapes his first draft class.
Unapologetic in his ways, confident in all situations, and identity-driven, so team confusion never reigns supreme—that’s who Aaron Glenn is as a person.
And that’s precisely the mode his first New York Jets draft class supports. At first glance, each selection is comfortable in who he is as a human and what he adds to the team’s targeted identity.
