How will the NY Jets divvy up their slot receiver snaps?

The New York Jets are rolling with a young, high-ceiling group of pass-catchers for the 2026 season.

How they will align said pass-catchers, though, remains largely unknown. Where will Kenyon Sadiq and Omar Cooper Jr. line up? Will Garrett Wilson get moved to a full-time role on the outside?

There are many questions, and a lot of them revolve around how the Jets plan to manage the slot position.

Today, we’ll attempt to estimate how the Jets will deploy their snaps in the slot.

Jets’ 2025 slot percentages

During the 2025 season, the Jets logged a combined 931 pass-game snaps in the slot on 612 dropbacks.

This shows that Gang Green used multiple players in the slot on most passing plays. On average, that’s 1.52 slot snaps per dropback.

Here is a look at how the Jets divvied up those slot snaps last season.

Isaiah Williams: 147 (66.8% of Williams’ routes run)
Mason Taylor: 133 (31.7%)
Arian Smith: 110 (42.6%)
Garrett Wilson: 94 (38.8%)
John Metchie III: 93 (37.5%)
Allen Lazard: 81 (46.8%)
Tyler Johnson: 72 (40.9%)
Adonai Mitchell: 49 (19.4%)
Jeremy Ruckert: 38 (15.5%)
Josh Reynolds: 37 (21.5%)
Stone Smartt: 31 (49.2%)
Isaiah Davis: 15 (6.6%)
Breece Hall: 13 (3.7%)
Andrew Beck: 8 (22.2%)
Jelani Woods: 5 (20.8%)
Kene Nwangwu: 2 (13.3%)
Quentin Skinner: 2 (20%)
Braelon Allen: 1 (3.6%)

There are a few notable takeaways from this list.

Isaiah Williams’ slot usage was the highest on the team last season, making it interesting to project how he fits into the team’s revamped pass-catching corps. He is most likely not going to be given that same volume of offensive snaps.

I don’t expect Mason Taylor’s slot snap count to be as high in 2026, largely due to the arrival of Kenyon Sadiq.

For the two to play alongside each other, putting Sadiq in the slot and Taylor in line would make the most sense, given Taylor’s size and blocking ability and Sadiq’s pass-catching prowess and speed.

While Garrett Wilson played in only seven games, his 38.8% slot percentage was the highest of his career after a 30.2% mark in 2024. Over a 17-game sample size, with a much different-looking WR room, it will be intriguing to monitor how his usage there evolves.

There will be a lot of snaps up for grabs, as John Metchie III, Stone Smartt, Tyler Johnson, Josh Reynolds, and Allen Lazard, who combined for 314 of the Jets’ 931 slot snaps (33.7%), will not be returning.

Lastly, an important caveat is that these numbers were under Tanner Engstrand’s offensive system. Now, with Frank Reich as the team’s OC, the Jets are set to run a much different scheme, and that could certainly impact slot usage.

Historically, the 64-year-old has relied on 11 personnel, which includes one running back, one tight end, and three wide receivers.

In each of his last six seasons as a play caller, he was well above the 2025 league average of 11 personnel usage. His squads had an average 11 personnel usage rate of 72%, which would have been the highest among all 32 teams in 2025. That means the Jets are likely poised to rely on the slot even more.

Biggest questions

Ideally, Gang Green is hoping that first-round rookie Omar Cooper Jr. is able to become the Jets’ main slot receiver. However, that is putting a lot of pressure on an end-of-the-first-round rookie to deliver right away.

As I noted above, Sadiq should be used frequently in the slot this season, while it remains unknown how Isaiah Williams will ultimately fit into the picture.

Cooper Jr. has experience playing both in the slot and on the outside. However, his 2025 success came in a slot-dominant role. He recorded 69 receptions for 937 yards and 13 touchdowns while running 83.3% of his routes out of the slot.

The year prior, Cooper Jr. flashed his skill set as a deep threat, collecting 594 yards and seven touchdowns on 28 receptions while averaging 21.2 yards per catch.

Another question is how much the Reich system will alter the Jets’ approach to utilizing the slot. His significant favoritism towards 11 personnel has been well documented, and that will play a large role in the Jets’ schematic changes this season.

Lastly, what does Wilson’s slot role look like? He hasn’t played with an established WR2 throughout his four-year career (save for 11 games with Davante Adams), forcing him to fluctuate between the slot and the outside quite often.

If Cooper Jr. has the year the Jets are hoping for, do Wilson’s slot numbers decline as he and Adonai Mitchell serve as the team’s primary boundary receivers? That’s certainly something to keep in mind, especially due to Geno Smith’s career tendencies.

At his peak, Smith has been one of the best deep passers in football, and moving Wilson to the outside would allow him to emerge as a deep threat, an area of his game that hasn’t been fully unleashed throughout his career.

2026 Jets slot projections

Geno Smith has averaged about 603 dropbacks per season over the last four years. At that number, if we assume the Jets creep up to 1.55 slot snaps per dropback, the team would have 935 slot snaps to be distributed.

Here’s my projection of how those snaps will go around.

Kenyon Sadiq: 350
Omar Cooper Jr.: 202
Garrett Wilson: 80
Isaiah Williams: 75
Mason Taylor: 60
Tim Patrick: 43
Arian Smith: 40
Adonai Mitchell: 30
Jeremy Ruckert: 25
Breece Hall: 20
Isaiah Davis: 10

First off, this projection is far from definitive. Smith could log more or fewer dropbacks than we expected, and the Jets could utilize the slot differently than expected.

Based on Smith’s and Reich’s tendencies, though, 935 appears to be a safe range to project a total of slot snaps.

I project Sadiq will comfortably lead the Jets in slot snaps this season with Cooper Jr., a fellow first-round rookie, finishing right behind him.

I expect Breece Hall to get at least one look in the slot per game this year, as Reich has had a history of putting RBs in the slot from time to time to create mismatches in 11 personnel.

Tim Patrick, an experienced veteran and a newcomer in the Jets’ wide receiver room, will pick up a solid workload as a depth piece. He has logged over 75 slot snaps in each of his past four seasons. That number should decline, though, as he is better suited as a run-blocker on the outside for the 2026 Jets.

Williams can maintain a role in the slot due to his speed, but his 147 mark from last season drops to 75 in these projections.

The exact numbers will inevitably change, but the Jets’ slot usage in 2026 will play a major role in how the team’s revamped offense comes together.