Just like most conversations surrounding the New York Jets, most people choose not to find a middle ground. It’s either one polar extreme or the other.
We are seeing that unfold right now with the No. 2 overall pick and rookie Jets edge rusher David Bailey. For the most part, you hear people saying either “Bailey is a bust” or “Bailey will be the greatest Jets edge ever.” Once again, rarely a middle ground.
Four games into his NFL career, Bailey hasn’t reached elite status, but that isn’t enough for his haters to label him a full-blown bust. Finding that median when talking about Bailey, especially at this point in his career, is crucial.
Let’s talk about David Bailey
Look, the lofty expectations are understandable. When teams take an edge rusher with the No. 2 overall pick, fans want a player who can change games right away.
At the end of the day, Jets fans aren’t wrong to want more from Bailey, especially given how badly this defense needs a consistent pass rush.
Through four games this season, Bailey has logged 11 total pressures, according to Pro Football Focus, which ranks him 35th among edge rushers. He has also tallied two sacks and a forced fumble, while his 56.8 pass-rushing grade at PFF ranks 84th among 110 qualified edges.
Of course, pressures need context. Chasing a quarterback to the sideline, which both of his sacks actually came from, and winning a one-and-one against a tackle are two completely different stories. Winning one-and-one battles has been a struggle for the Texas Tech product so far. At PFF, he ranks 100th among 114 qualifiers in their “pass rush win rate” (5.4%).
For these reasons, questions about Bailey should be more nuanced than “Is he a bust?”.
How consistently is he affecting the quarterback? Where does he need to improve? What has sneakily been working? Those are the questions that folks should be focused on right now, not incoherently screaming about whether Bailey is a bust or a star less than five games into his NFL career.
It’s also worth having realistic expectations for the rookie pass rusher. A laundry list of pass rushers have gone on to have excellent careers but don’t necessarily run up their sack total right away.
Khalil Mack, a three-time first-team All-Pro who won the league’s Defensive Player of the Year award in 2016, was the fifth overall pick in the 2014 draft. He finished his rookie year with just four sacks, not even recording his first until Week 11. Even Houston Texans star Will Anderson Jr., taken No. 3 overall in 2023, had just seven sacks in his first year, including one over his first eight games.
I’m not comparing Bailey to those guys whatsoever; they’re entirely different players, but it sets the baseline that rookie sack totals don’t mean everything for a highly selected EDGE.
As our own Joe Blewett pointed out during his weekly appearance on “The Jake Asman Show,” Bailey isn’t the bendiest player, and his hand usage could use a lot of work. Overall, he doesn’t appear to be the “pro-ready” player that he was sold as ahead of the draft.
However, he has also quietly made an impact in several facets that seem to have gone unnoticed.
As our own Michael Nania highlighted in his film breakdown from Week 3, Bailey had a nice rep covering Sam LaPorta on a play that ended in an Andre Cisco sack. He also made consecutive run tackles in the fourth quarter before contributing in coverage to help set up a fourth-down stop.
So, he hasn’t been a complete liability. While his start to the season as a pass rusher has been underwhelming, he has impacted the game in other areas, including run defense.
Entering this year’s draft, one of the biggest criticisms of Bailey was his shortcomings as a run defender. That hasn’t been a major problem yet, though. He’s been quite serviceable on rushing downs, logging a 75.1 run defense grade from PFF, ranking 13th among 110 edge rushers. He also ranks third in run-stop win rate at 36%, winning 19 of 53 reps, per ESPN.
There’s another part of this discussion that gets lost: The Jets should not be relying on Bailey as their lone pass rusher. That doesn’t excuse his lack of consistency, but the spotlight also needs to be on the veterans around him.
As we recently broke down, Will McDonald has generated just four pressures across 51 pass-rush snaps from Weeks 2-4 after a five-pressure outing in the season opener on just 18 reps.
Meanwhile, Joseph Ossai, the Jets’ highest-paid free agent this offseason, has gone without a pressure on 35 pass-rush snaps in his two games this year. Context is key, as he missed much of the summer and the start of the regular season due to injury, but the Jets will need production from a player they just signed to a $34.5 million deal over three years.
Kingsley Enagbare, another free-agent addition, has been a pleasant surprise in the pass-rushing facet, but he missed Sunday’s loss to the Bears, leaving McDonald and Bailey responsible to anchor the pass rush.
Bailey hasn’t been an elite pass-rusher four games into his NFL career, but it also isn’t as if the veterans around him have been thriving. The unit as a whole is struggling. Fans shouldn’t be expecting him to put the edge room on his back and be the top option as a rookie. I understand he was drafted No. 2 overall, but he is a rookie playing a role that rookies don’t typically thrive in right out of the gate.
So, yes, the Jets are going to need more from Bailey. He needs to pick up the pace and make legitimate progress over the next few weeks. But the players around him also need to step up.
