Second-year defensive tackle Jowon Briggs has been one of the New York Jets’ brightest silver linings in a dismal 3-10 season.
Acquired from the Cleveland Browns in an August trade, the 2024 seventh-round pick did not generate much fanfare when the Jets acquired him. However, he sneakily provided appealing upside relative to the price it took to bring him in (swapping a 2026 sixth-rounder for a seventh-rounder). Briggs was an efficient run stuffer for the Browns in limited rookie-year opportunities, and he had shown progress in the 2025 preseason.
Through the first eight games of his debut season in green, Briggs delivered upon that promise, emerging as an impressive situational run stuffer for the Jets. The trade already looked like a coup for first-year general manager Darren Mougey, as Briggs seemed to be assimilating nicely into a long-term role for New York.
Quietly, though, Briggs was also showing interesting upside as a pass rusher in his limited role. Then, when the Jets traded star defensive tackle Quinnen Williams, Briggs would get his opportunity to flex his pass-rush muscles in a featured role.
Boy, has he seized his shot.
Seemingly out of nowhere, the many formerly known as a situational run stuffer has become one of the NFL’s most prolific pass rushers. Immediately following the Williams trade, Briggs vaulted to the top of just about any pass-rushing metric for NFL defensive tackles, and he has yet to show any signs of slowing down.
Even in the Jets’ most recent game, a hapless 34-10 loss to the Miami Dolphins, Briggs still brought the thunder. Despite only getting 17 pass-rush snaps against a run-heavy Miami game script, Briggs finished the game with a team-high three pressures, giving him a sterling pressure rate of 17.6%.
Since the Williams trade, Briggs has registered a perfect five games out of five with a pressure rate above the league average for defensive tackles (7.7%). As this streak keeps extending, it becomes more and more likely that Briggs’ post-trade surge is for real.
With another impressive outing in the books, Briggs continues to hold up as one of the NFL’s hottest pass-rushing defensive tackles in recent weeks. Since Week 10, he ranks fourth among defensive tackles with 19 total pressures, trailing only a trio of superstars: Chris Jones (20), Jeffery Simmons (22), and the man Briggs stepped up to replace, Quinnen Williams (26).
That’s despite each of those three players getting at least 30 more pass-rush snaps than Briggs over that span. From an efficiency standpoint, Briggs appears even more prolific relative to his peers.
Briggs owns a pressure rate of 19% since Week 10, ranking second at the position behind only Williams’ 20%. He also has a 90.1 pass-rush grade at Pro Football Focus, which ranks second behind Chris Jones’ 91.1.
So… have the Jets really turned a sixth-for-seventh pick swap into a 24-year-old star interior pass rusher?
It’s too early to definitively answer that question with a “yes,” but the longer Briggs keeps this up, the closer we get to that dreamlike outcome becoming a reality for Darren Mougey and the Jets.
