While Friday night’s preseason debut for the New York Jets delivered plenty to be excited about, there were also a few players whose stock fell due to their performances.

Here is a look at the top three Jets who hurt their stock due to their play on Friday night.

QB Bailey Zappe

After fourth-round rookie Cade Klubnik led the Jets for the game’s first two drives, Bailey Zappe took over the reins, and the game immediately flipped upside down for New York.

On his first snap under center, he threw a pick-six before tossing an interception on the next drive, although it was a catchable ball that Arian Smith dropped.

Nevertheless, it wasn’t a pretty day for Zappe, who ended up finishing his night with 55 yards, zero touchdowns and two interceptions on a 60% completion rate while enduring two sacks.

As we detailed, Friday night’s game showed exactly why the Jets’ QB2 to begin the season will likely be either Klubnik or a veteran who is not yet on the roster—an Andy Dalton-type player with experience at the position who the team could acquire around cutdown day.

Entering the summer, Zappe had a real chance to earn the QB2 job. Ahead of training camp, head coach Aaron Glenn even said he was slotted for the role, though it remained an open competition.

However, it doesn’t appear that Zappe has received many second-team reps throughout training camp; Klubnik leapfrogged him on the team’s first unofficial depth chart, for what it’s worth, and his performance to begin the preseason left a lot to be desired.

Overall, Zappe’s performance to begin the preseason was far from ideal.

WR Arian Smith

Arian Smith was one of the players I was most excited to watch on Friday. After a rookie year in which he was unable to carve out a role, I was intrigued to see what his play would look like at the start of the preseason.

Entering the game, he had an inconsistent start to training camp, making a few highlight-reel plays while also continuing to struggle with drops, which were his main issue in college.

Well, on Friday night, the latter plagued him once again. His one drop in the game led to an interception, marking the second consecutive drive in which Gang Green turned the ball over.

Following the drop, he wasn’t even targeted for the remainder of the game.

Coming off a season where it was difficult to be optimistic about the 2025 fourth-round pick, it was far from the start to the preseason that many folks wanted to see.

Each year, there are always a few “surprise cuts” on each team’s 53-man roster. If he continues on this trajectory throughout the squad’s final two preseason games, Smith could perhaps be that surprise cut.

He is in an odd spot with the team. His speed is a valuable asset, but the drops and overall inconsistency in his game have hindered him from getting into a rhythm.

The one thing he has going for him is his special-teams ability, as he contributed to the punt coverage unit in his rookie year. However, it will take more than just that for the Georgia product to stick around.

We will see how the remainder of the preseason goes right now, but it’s safe to say that Friday night wasn’t particularly the start that Smith was looking for.

S Malachi Moore

Unlike Zappe and Smith, Malachi Moore doesn’t seem to be on the roster bubble, but his opening to the preseason wasn’t quite encouraging.

Moore did not perform poorly, but it was noteworthy that he didn’t find the field until the Jets’ third- and fourth-team defense came out. Perhaps that reaffirms the training camp narratives that he’s fallen behind Andre Cisco and Dane Belton.

That’s very odd to see from a fourth-round pick last year who played all 17 games in his rookie season and started 14 of them, playing a major role to close out the season.

Throughout training camp, his name hasn’t been heard much. Instead, it seems that Belton and Cisco are shaping up to be the team’s No. 2 and 3 safeties behind Minkah Fitzpatrick.

Belton, in particular, played very well to kick off the preseason, while Cisco didn’t have any major blunders. Cisco got the start alongside Fitzpatrick, although he played well past the rest of the first-team defense, logging 21 snaps.

Throughout the preseason, one might think the Jets would benefit from giving Cisco’s snaps to Moore. The former is a known commodity, having started 55 NFL games. He is certainly not a No. 1 safety, and he is most likely not a No. 2 safety on a competitive team.

Moore, on the other hand, at least provides a little bit of intrigue. His 70 solo tackles ranked 18th among safeties last season. Perhaps Moore still has some potential worth exploring despite a disappointing summer.

While there may be more to unlock in his game, the Alabama product has to make up some ground after Friday night. It isn’t a good sign that Moore entered the Jets’ first preseason game with the back-of-the-roster defensive unit.