Since 2022, the New York Jets have had an interesting reputation.
With so much young talent, Gang Green has been known as an undisciplined but encouraging young team with many strong pieces at key positions. Garrett Wilson, Sauce Gardner, Breece Hall, and so many others were brought in to turn around the decades of losing.
Since that season, though, the Jets’ young core has done nothing but add some bright spots to continued losing.
The 2025 season has been the hardest for that core. Sitting at 0-7 with the trade deadline approaching, many of the young players acquired by Joe Douglas could be used as trade bait in the coming weeks.
It would officially turn this era into one of the most disappointing in team history.
Last chance for core Jets players
Even if the Jets find a way to defeat the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday, there’s still a good likelihood that some of the team’s talent will be shipped off for draft capital. In that way, Sunday might be meaningless for the young core.
But for a coaching staff desperately looking to show that their methods can succeed in turning around the team’s culture, a victory could convince them to want to see more from the current roster.
Players like linebacker Quincy Williams, running back Breece Hall, and cornerback Michael Carter II have all heard their names drawn in trade talks over the last few weeks.
A loss may only exacerbate the Jets’ need to raise capital for players who cannot change the franchise’s losing ways. If these players were going to anchor a turnaround in New York, it would have already happened.
The Jets have a lot of talented players on their roster. That much has been clear for years now. But as they have witnessed, being talented does not guarantee that wins will come. The franchise has learned this lesson the hard way.
With a new regime and little left to play for in 2025, Sunday’s game against the Bengals may be the last time Jets fans see some of these individuals donning green-and-white jerseys before they are shipped out.
It will only prove that the current era of Jets football may be the franchise’s most disappointing of all time. They had a core talented enough to bring excitement, but it never led to victories.