Few teams in NFL history have looked worse than the 2025 New York Jets.
According to DVOA (defense-adjusted value over average)—a metric that measures play-by-play efficiency versus league average after accounting for variables such as down, distance, field position, score, time, opponent quality, and so on—the 2025 Jets are one of the three worst teams in NFL history after removing special teams production.
The Jets had a combined offensive and defensive DVOA of -46.1%, a product of ranking as the league’s third-worst offense and second-worst defense. That mark is the third-worst single-season output dating back to the 1978 season, which is as far back as the metric is available. The only teams worse than the 2025 Jets on offensive/defensive plays were the 1991 Indianapolis Colts and the 2005 San Francisco 49ers.
A historically great special teams unit helped the Jets look semi-competent at times, paving the way for three victories. Without their special teams’ historic greatness, the Jets had the makings of a winless team. After all, one spot behind the Jets in the aforementioned category is the 2008 Detroit Lions (-45.2% offensive/defensive DVOA), who went 0-16.
With this type of historically pitiful production on plays from scrimmage, the Jets are left to face a daunting question entering the 2026 offseason:
How many good players do we have?
If we define “good” as “comfortably above-average at their position,” it can be argued that the Jets only have five good players between offense and defense.
Here they are.
WR Garrett Wilson
Wilson only played in seven games, leaving early due to injury in two of those, and yet, he still ended up as the Jets’ leading receiver with 395 yards.
That shocking factoid speaks more to how bad the rest of the Jets’ receiving unit is than it does to Wilson’s greatness. Still, Wilson was off to a phenomenal start before injuries derailed a potential career year.
Through five games, Wilson had racked up 382 yards and four touchdowns. It had him on pace for career highs of 1,299 receiving yards and 14 touchdowns, and that was in a low-volume passing attack with inefficient quarterbacking.
If Wilson is ever lucky enough to enjoy even just a competent offensive environment in New York, he will compete for the league’s WR1 title.
RB Breece Hall
Hall enjoyed a strong bounce-back year after a much-maligned 2024 season. He didn’t quite reach the RB1 status that many projected for him ahead of 2024, but he was a definitive net-positive for the Jets’ fledgling offense.
Despite being the focal point of opposing defensive game plans due to the Jets’ inept passing game, Hall managed to have an efficient year as a runner on high volume. He carried the ball 243 times for 1,065 yards (4.4 yards per attempt) while maintaining a 49.8% success rate, falling just short of the 50% career high he set as a rookie.
Hall created a lot of his production on his own. He racked up 142 rushing yards over expected (RYOE), ranking 15th-best among running backs. This was a major improvement compared to the 2024 season, when he collected just 2 RYOE over the entire season, indicating that he essentially picked up what was blocked for him and nothing more.
This year, though, Hall was a net-positive—and he had to be for the Jets to have any chance of looking competent offensively. With defenses stacking the box on almost every play, a league-average running back would have consistently run into walls at the line of scrimmage. For Hall to reach the 1,000-yard mark on solid efficiency, he had to be a high-level creator, and that is precisely what he did.
Hall also had an efficient year as a receiver. Strangely, the Jets threw him a career-low 3.0 targets per game, but Hall made the most of them, catching 36 of his 48 targets for 350 yards. Hall set career highs with 7.3 yards per target and a 54.2% receiving success rate (well above his previous career best of 40%).
Hall’s exact ranking among running backs is debatable, but he is certainly a very good player at the position. If the Jets lose him in free agency, they will have big shoes to fill. He is the type of running back whose production cannot be easily replicated by anybody off the scrap heap.
LT Olu Fashanu
After a shaky start, Olu Fashanu was one of the league’s premier blindside protectors for the majority of the season.
From Weeks 7-18, Fashanu posted an 80.2 pass-blocking grade at Pro Football Focus, the seventh-best mark out of 32 qualified left tackles.
Look at the company he kept:
- Garett Bolles, DEN (87.7)
- Laremy Tunsil, WAS (85.9)
- Andrew Thomas, NYG (85.8)
- Tristan Wirfs, TB (84.7)
- Trent Williams, SF (83.2)
- Jordan Mailata, PHI (82.9)
- Olu Fashanu, NYJ (80.2)
- Jake Matthews, ATL (79.5)
- Bernhard Raimann, MIN (79.0)
- Dion Dawkins, BUF (77.8)
If you’re producing at the level of those guys over a 12-week span as a second-year player with first-round talent, it’s quite clear that you’re a good football player.
Fashanu’s run blocking still needs work; it’s a weakness that caps his overall value. However, pass protection at left tackle is one of the most valuable individual skills in the sport. Fashanu spent the last 12 weeks performing at a top-10 level in that category, and he was the youngest player in the top 10 by nearly four years compared to the closest players (Thomas/Wirfs).
Even with his run-blocking struggles, the Jets have a big-time piece in Fashanu thanks to his pass protection alone, and he should only improve from here.
RT Armand Membou
The rookie turned heads as soon as he stepped on an NFL field. In his debut, Membou stymied T.J. Watt, helping to spark an excellent offensive performance by the Jets.
It was a sign of things to come. Throughout his rookie season, Membou already looked like a well-above-average starting right tackle in both phases. He finished with solid grades as both a run blocker (72.1) and pass blocker (73.8) at PFF.
Membou was one of only nine right tackles with 72+ grades as both a run blocker and pass blocker; at 21 years old, he was the youngest player in that group by two years. He was also the only rookie tackle to hit those marks among the 12 who played at least 150 snaps (including left tackles).
The Jets have something special in their young bookend duo.
DT Jowon Briggs
If Hall returns, the Jets will have four good offensive players returning from the 2025 team. It’s not an ideal total, but it’s something the Jets can work with.
The other side of the ball is where New York’s talent deficiency is most glaring. It can be argued that the Jets have only one good defensive player: Jowon Briggs.
Imagine if I told you that five months ago.
The 2024 seventh-round pick of the Browns, who was acquired in August for a measly pick swap, is now the only defensive player that the Jets can hang their hats on.
Early in the season, Briggs showed surprising pass-rush promise in short spurts while handling his duties as a situational run stuffer. Once Quinnen Williams was traded, Briggs was thrust into a larger role, and he immediately broke out with elite numbers as a pass rusher. From there, he never slowed down.
Briggs finished the 2025 season as one of the most efficient interior pass rushers in the NFL, and you don’t even have to isolate his post-trade games to see him at the top of the leaderboards. For the year, Briggs ranked fourth among defensive tackles in PFF’s pass-rush grade (85.6), sixth in pressure rate (11.9%), and third in pass-rush win rate (15.3%).
The only other defensive tackles in football with an 85+ pass-rush grade, 11%+ pressure rate, and a 15%+ pass-rush win rate were Jeffery Simmons and Chris Jones.
Yeah, it’s safe to say that Briggs is a stud.
All the while, Briggs continued to make an impact in the run game. While his run-stopping production fell off a bit once he began to focus on pass rushing, he was still above-average in that phase; among 133 qualified defensive tackles, Briggs ranked 64th in PFF’s run defense grade and 49th in run-stop rate.
Honorable mentions
Player evaluation is subjective, so other people may believe the Jets have more than five good players. Perhaps some even believe that five is generous.
Based on the evidence at hand, though, five seems like an accurate projection.
The Jets have some other intriguing young prospects with the potential to become good players, but none of them were comfortably above-average at their positions in 2025.
The depth chart also features some players who performed competently in their roles, and perhaps they were even good players in the past, but it would be a stretch to call them “good” based on their 2025 production.
Here are some of the players on the bubble of being considered “good”.
TE Mason Taylor
Taylor’s box-score stats don’t jump out at you: 44 receptions for 369 yards and one touchdown in 13 games. However, it was never going to be fair to judge Taylor on his box-score stats in this type of offense.
Evaluation of Taylor has to be done by focusing on areas within in his control. In those areas, I think Taylor teeter-tottered on “good” status for much of the year. He ran good routes, caught most of the catchable passes thrown his way, and improved as a blocker.
However, Taylor had a string of rough drops over his final few appearances before injuries ended his season. Ultimately, he finished with five drops on 44 receptions, a poor 10.2% drop rate, which is something he needs to improve on. The highlight of Taylor’s season was his contested catching, as he finished 11-of-14 on contested targets (78.6%).
Still only 21 years old with a second-round pedigree, Taylor laid the foundation to become a good starting tight end in the near future.
CB Azareye’h Thomas
The Jets’ third-round rookie flashed every time he took the field in limited appearances during the early portion of the season. Once Sauce Gardner was traded, Thomas got the opportunity to take on a starting role.
Thomas endured too many rookie bumps to be considered a good player just yet, but for a 21-year-old rookie, he showed tremendous promise. On 159 coverage snaps, Thomas allowed 12 of 25 passes in his direction to be completed for 177 yards, one touchdown, and no interceptions.
Before his season ended due to injury, Thomas was on a streak of six consecutive games with at least one pass defended.
This offseason, Thomas must work on his tackling. Thomas missed five tackles in limited action, giving him a missed tackle rate of 21.7%, placing third-worst on the team among players who logged at least 300 snaps (better than only Will McDonald and Micheal Clemons).
RG Joe Tippmann
After acquitting himself well at center in 2024, Tippmann was thrust back into the right guard spot just before the 2025 season due to Alijah Vera-Tucker’s season-ending injury.
Tippmann was not as productive at guard as he was at center. In 2024, Tippmann separated himself as one of the league’s better centers, ranking eighth-best out of 32 qualifiers with a 73.4 overall grade at PFF. But as a guard in 2025, Tippmann looked average, ranking 17th out of 32 qualifiers with a 66.0 overall grade.
PFF grades aren’t everything, but the film sent the same message. As a guard, Tippmann jumped off the screen with critical mistakes more frequently than he did at center.
The Jets should consider moving Tippmann back to center in 2025. They need to upgrade the position anyway, since Josh Myers was a liability as Tippmann’s replacement. Moving Tippmann back inside could be an easy in-house solution.
CB Brandon Stephens
In some ways, Stephens could be labeled as a good player for his performance in 2025.
Stephens displayed solid consistency in coverage. Giving up 509 yards on 583 coverage snaps, Stephens averaged 0.87 yards allowed per cover snap, ranking 35th-best out of 85 qualified cornerbacks.
The veteran also stood out for his consistent tackling on a defense that was mostly soft in the tackling department. Stephens’ 9.1% missed tackle rate ranked 16th-lowest among 85 qualified cornerbacks.
However, when it was all said and done, Stephens allowed an 8-to-0 touchdown-to-interception ratio on throws into his coverage. That type of production just isn’t acceptable for a starting cornerback, and it wipes out his above-average play in other areas.
As a team, the Jets allowed a 36-to-0 touchdown-to-interception ratio in 2025. Everyone on defense had a hand in that, but when your primary starting corner gives up eight scores without picking off a single pass to make up for it, he stands out as arguably the No. 1 culprit.
Stephens is a decent player, but the Jets should try to find an upgrade this offseason. In an ideal world, Thomas makes a second-year leap to win one of the two starting spots, while someone else is brought in to take Stephens’ spot.
EDGE Will McDonald
In 2024, McDonald was not only “good,” but he seemed to be trending toward star status. He had 10.5 sacks and 61 total pressures in an all-around excellent pass-rushing campaign.
Instead, McDonald reverted to a below-average player in 2025.
McDonald was a middling pass rusher, ranking 42nd among edge rushers with 42 total pressures and 51st out of 91 qualifiers with an 11.0% pass-rush win rate. Considering his sustained issues against the run, McDonald was a liability overall.
The pass-rush ceiling is clearly there for McDonald, but the lackluster production is what it is.
EDGE Jermaine Johnson
One of the NFL’s most well-rounded edge rushers in the 2023 season, Johnson was not close to himself in his first full season back from the Achilles tear that he suffered in September 2024.
Johnson finished 57th among edge rushers with just 35 total pressures, well shy of the 56 he collected in 2023 (26th). His 10.3% pass-rush win rate was 61st out of 91 qualifiers, down from 12.4%.
In the run game, Johnson was not the disruptive force he used to be, finishing the season with just 10 run stops (44th among EDGE) in 14 games. In 2023, he tied for 16th at his position with 20 run stops.
Johnson also dropped from seven passes defended in 2023 to two in 2025, and from 7.5 sacks to three. His missed tackle total increased from four to seven.
Time will tell if Johnson’s Achilles tear has done irreversible damage to his athleticism, or if he will return to peak form in his second year removed from the injury.
That’s all, folks
There you have it: All things considered, it appears the Jets have five good players between offense and defense entering the 2026 offseason, and one of them is a free agent with a realistic chance of leaving.
The good news for the Jets is that they have all the assets they could ask for to fill their porous depth chart. Four top-45 draft picks and over $90 million in cap space await. Not to mention, they have another three first-round picks waiting to be used in 2027.
The bad news is that their plethora of assets is a reflection of how poor the roster is. The Jets have a ton of high draft picks and oodles of cap space because there are very few good players on the team.
The math is simple. The Jets’ draft slots are high because the team stinks, and they have extra picks because they dumped arguably the two best players on the team, who now must be replaced. The Jets’ cap space is abundant because they don’t have any players on the team who have played well enough to demand an expensive contract, outside of Wilson.
If the Jets nail every single asset they use in the 2026 offseason, they can escape the doldrums in no time. They have more than enough resources to add new faces at every weak spot on the roster.
Will the Jets nail every single asset they use in the 2026 offseason, though?
Probably not. It’s an extremely difficult proposition for any NFL team, let alone an organization that has missed the playoffs 15 years in a row, and set numerous records of ineptitude in the first season of its new regime.
It’s nice that the Jets have so many resources to improve the roster moving forward. However, they got here because their roster has deteriorated to breadcrumbs, not through a genius rebuild plan.
Starting from the already-low point the franchise found itself after the 2024 season, the roster has taken two giant steps backward. Yes, those two steps backward yielded some incredible resources, but many of those resources will be needed just to make those two steps back up.
The Jets do not have a “surplus” of resources; they have precisely as much as they should have, given how far beneath the surface they have buried their roster. If these assets are executed upon with league-average efficiency, it will only be enough to bring the Jets back to semi-respectability, not to playoff contention.
For the Jets to climb out of their deep hole and reach playoff contention, their regime must start exceeding expectations at some point. That has to come from some combination of the front office and the coaching staff.
Perhaps the Jets will capitalize upon these assets to a shocking degree, using them to build a surprising super-team. With the assets they have, it’s conceivable; we just don’t see drafts like the 2017 Saints very often. Pull it off, though, and an instant turnaround can happen.
Or, perhaps head coach Aaron Glenn and his staff will undergo a shocking turnaround. If Glenn can figure out how to start developing a quantity of useful players from unexpected places, it can raise the team’s ceiling well beyond the expectations of its on-paper talent. This type of player development is what allowed the Los Angeles Rams to rebuild so rapidly after they expended all of their premium resources to pursue a Super Bowl.
The Jets, of course, still have plenty of premium resources, but as we discussed, they need to use a large portion of those resources just to get their roster back to competency. To soar even further beyond that, it’s on Glenn and the coaches to create value by unearthing impact from low-cost investments, such as cheap free agents or late-round draft picks.
With extremely little in-house talent to fall back on, there is immense pressure on general manager Darren Mougey and head coach Aaron Glenn to maximize the heaping pile of assets they’ve collected. The Jets have everything they need to build up their team, but it has to be understood that they are starting from about as close to the bottom as an NFL team can realistically get.
The assets alone won’t be enough to get the Jets out of a hole this deep. Great management from both the GM and the head coach will be required for these assets to turn a team that got outscored by 203 points into a playoff team within the next two years.
