It may have taken a bit longer than expected, but the New York Jets front office has sent the same message that the 1969 Pittsburgh Steelers sent to theirs.

That season, new head coach Chuck Noll opened his first training camp with a clear statement to the team: You aren’t good enough. Former Steelers linebacker Andy Russell recalled the meeting in “America’s Game,” a documentary about the Super Bowl champions of the past.

“[Noll] said, ‘The reason you’ve been losing is you’re not any good. You’re not fast enough, you’re not strong enough, you’re not quick enough, you’re not smart enough. I’m going to have to get rid of most of you,'” Russell recalled.

It took eight games into their first season together, but Aaron Glenn, Darren Mougey, and the rest of the Jets front office shared a similar thought process with the 2025 Jets.

Instead of telling them outright, though, the organization simply shipped off two of their best players at the trade deadline.

And the rest of the roster has to pick up the pieces now.

Jets’ message to roster

In the span of a few hours, the Jets traded away All-Pro cornerback Sauce Gardner and All-Pro defensive tackle Quinnen Williams for three first-round picks, a second-round pick, and two early-round prospects from the last three drafts.

Make no mistake: The Jets received a haul of draft capital for two extremely talented players.

But would the Denver Broncos agree to a deal of two first-round picks for reigning defensive player of the year Patrick Surtain? Would the Philadelphia Eagles ship off Jalen Carter for a first-round and second-round selection spread out over two years?

The answer is no.

So why did the Jets do it?

Since the arrival of Gardner in 2022, the Jets defense has quickly become one of the more talented units in football. They finished as a top five unit in 2022 and 2023.

But as strong an impact as Gardner and Williams had on the defense, the wins never followed.

The Jets are 20-39 since the 2022 draft. Gardner and Williams weren’t the reasons for the team’s struggles, but their skill sets were such that they could not truly affect the losing that the organization has become known for.

And if the team’s two most talented players aren’t enough to turn around a losing culture, then maybe the core was never strong enough to begin with.

That’s the argument Mougey, Glenn, and the Jets front office made on Tuesday. They would rather accumulate as much draft capital as possible for the chance to find players that might be better at helping turn around the organization.

Will it work?

The Jets are set to have five first-round picks over the next two drafts. That kind of capital can fundamentally shift how an organization operates and looks in the future.

It’s also the exact same opportunity that the organization had between 2021 and 2022. In 2021, Zach Wilson and Alijah Vera-Tucker joined the team together in the same first round. In 2022, the Jets added Gardner, wide receiver Garrett Wilson, and edge rusher Jermaine Johnson.

Only two of those players are actually playing for the team now.

Trading away quality talent for draft capital is a gamble. The Jets are gambling that their front office will be able to find quality talent in the draft, and the coaching staff will be able to develop that talent into a cohesive team.

And while there have been signs of growth, the Mougey-Glenn partnership has not yet shown they are capable of those things.

It’s not as if they had much of a choice, though. New York’s core has stayed largely intact over the last few years. That core has consistently delivered sub-.500 finishes. Mougey and Glenn could have stuck it out to see what the core could do with a full year of a new regime.

Instead, they went the same route as Chuck Noll and the Steelers did in the late 60s.

Pittsburgh ended up becoming a dynasty. It is too early to tell if the Jets’ fire sale will have the same outcome.