Excluding special teams, almost nothing went right for the 2025 New York Jets.
Only one player enjoyed a true breakout season between the offensive and defensive units: defensive tackle Jowon Briggs.
The Cincinnati product, chosen in the seventh round of the 2024 NFL draft by the Cleveland Browns, was acquired by the Jets for a Day 3 pick swap just a few weeks ahead of the season opener. Originally added to be a back-end rotation player, Briggs eventually rose to the top of New York’s defensive tackle rotation due to injuries and the blockbuster Quinnen Williams trade.
Briggs seized the opportunity, and then some. Over the back half of the season, he was one of the most productive interior pass rushers in all of football. From Weeks 10-18, he ranked seventh among defensive tackles in total pressures (29) and third in pass-rush win rate (19.4%).
With numbers like that, it seemed that Briggs, who would be 25 years old at the 2026 season opener, had established himself as a potential cornerstone piece for New York’s defense.
The summer, though, raised red flags about Briggs’ standing within the organization.
In training camp and the preseason, Briggs usually worked with the Jets’ second and third-string defensive lines. He had been usurped on the depth chart by offseason pickups T’Vondre Sweat and David Onyemata, while the returning Harrison Phillips remained above him.
It was a peculiar sight, given Briggs’ second-half production in 2025. But as the regular season has progressed, we have seen why the Jets do not seem to view Briggs as anything more than a rotational player, no matter how good his numbers looked last season.
Jowon Briggs’ drop-off
As expected, based on the preseason, Briggs was buried on the Jets’ depth chart in the season opener, playing just 20% of the defensive snaps, ranking fourth among the team’s defensive tackles.
In Week 2, though, starter David Onyemata suffered an injury, thrusting Briggs back into the spotlight. His snap percentage jumped to 59%, and he took advantage, delivering one of his best games as a Jet. Briggs racked up three run stops and a pair of pressures, one of those being a strip-sack and the other being a QB hurry to force an incompletion.
At that point, it had appeared that Briggs was on track to maintain the production he displayed over the second half of 2025. Upon being tossed back into action for his first extended appearance of the season, he instantly delivered a multitude of impactful reps.
Briggs’ Week 2 production raised questions about why the Jets ever doubted his abilities as a starter in the first place. Well, over the last five games, those questions have been answered.
Onyemata (groin) has remained on injured reserve, giving Briggs a chance to play a featured role over the last five games (57% snap count), and the former seventh-round pick’s limitations have been made clear.
First and foremost, Briggs has stood out as an obvious liability against the run. He is frequently moved multiple yards off the line of scrimmage, and he also struggles with a tendency to be overaggressive at shooting gaps instead of holding his ground and maintaining gap integrity. Jets X-Factor’s Robby Sabo has frequently highlighted Briggs’ movability against the run.
After allowing under 70 rushing yards in each of the first two games, the Jets’ run defense has looked soft over the last five weeks; not only are they allowing 152.6 rushing yards per game, but they are yielding those yards with consistency rather than off a few home-run plays. The Jets are allowing a league-worst 9.2 rushing first downs per game since Week 3.
That stretch, of course, directly coincides with Briggs’ rise back into a prominent role.
Briggs’ struggles against the run would be manageable if he maintained the pass-rush production that he displayed in 2025, but he has not come anywhere close to that level. Seven games into 2026, last year’s stretch of dominant pass-rush numbers is starting to look like a fluke.
After ranking third among defensive tackles with a 19.4% pass-rush win rate from Weeks 10-18 of 2025, that number has been sliced to less than a third. Briggs has a pass-rush win rate of just 6.3%, per Pro Football Focus, ranking 58th out of 80 qualified defensive tackles (min. 100 pass-rush snaps).
In 2025, Briggs had at least three total pressures in six of his last nine games. This year, he has yet to have a single game with three pressures. He finished with just one pressure in five of his seven games.
Poor run defense and quiet pass-rushing isn’t exactly an ideal combination for a defensive tackle who plays over half the defensive snaps, and it shows in Briggs’ impact on the Jets’ defense. The unit looks substantially better when he is off the field.
According to RayCarp, the Jets allow +0.05 EPA (Expected Points Added) per play when Briggs is on the field compared to -0.09 when he is off. For perspective, that is equivalent to the difference between this year’s 25th-ranked defense (between Houston and Washington) and fourth-ranked defense (between Tampa Bay and Denver).
The Jets’ -0.14 drop-off in defensive EPA per play with Briggs off the field versus on ranks 204th out of 251 defensive linemen across the league. Simply put, the defense plays much worse when he is out there.
Briggs has plenty of time to turn things around and rediscover the upside he has displayed at certain points of his Jets career. So far, though, the 2026 season has shown why the Jets were able to get him for a Day 3 pick swap, and why they ultimately viewed him as a backup entering this season despite his gaudy numbers a year ago.
With Briggs slowly looking less and less like a long-term building block, defensive tackle is shaping up to be an enormous need for the Jets in the 2027 offseason.
