When the New York Jets shocked the NFL world by trading Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams back-to-back, the prevailing notion was that the Jets were accepting a massive short-term loss in hopes that it would yield a greater long-term gain.
But what if I told you that the massive short-term loss hasn’t actually happened yet?
In the wake of their blockbuster deals, the Jets have discovered that they may already have baby versions of their former All-Pro stars.
Jowon Briggs, Azareye’h Thomas are nearly replicating the stars they replaced
In terms of playing time, the main beneficiaries of Williams’ and Gardner’s exits were Jowon Briggs and Azareye’h Thomas, respectively.
Briggs, 24, began the year as the Jets’ No. 3 defensive tackle behind Williams and Harrison Phillips. Since the Williams trade, Briggs has been elevated to a starting role. After averaging a 36% snap count before the deal, the second-year man has skyrocketed to 58% over his last four games.
Thomas, a third-round rookie, has started at outside cornerback in each of his last four games since Gardner’s last appearance as a Jet in Week 7. The 21-year-old has played nearly all of the Jets’ defensive snaps outside of an injury he sustained in Week 10.
The Jets were undoubtedly excited to see each of these young players in an expanded role, as Briggs and Thomas had both shown promising flashes in limited spurts before the trade deadline. Perhaps one or both of them could prove worthy of a key role in 2026.
As optimistic as the Jets may have been, though, even they couldn’t have seen what was coming.
Four games past the trade deadline, two of the few NFL players outperforming Briggs and Thomas at their respective positions are… the guys they replaced.
The NFL’s best pass-rushing DTs are Quinnen Williams and… Jowon Briggs?
Let’s start with Briggs, who has exploded as a pass rusher.
Since Week 10, Briggs has accumulated 16 total pressures on a whopping 19.3% pressure rate. Over this span, he is tied for second among defensive tackles in total pressures and stands alone as the second-best player in pressure rate.
The only man above him in both categories? Quinnen Williams.
It’s a shocking surge from Briggs, who was primarily acquired for his run defense. The 2024 seventh-round pick showed promise as a run defender in his rookie season with the Browns, but there wasn’t much pass-rush upside to speak of (four pressures on 63 pass-rush snaps).
Jets general manager Darren Mougey nabbed Briggs in August for a measly pick swap, sending a 2026 sixth-rounder in exchange for Briggs and a 2026 seventh-rounder. The deal already felt like a coup before the Williams trade, as Briggs provided his expected quality run defense in a situational role, along with surprising flashes of pass-rush juice. Since the Williams deal, though, only Williams himself is outperforming Briggs as a pass rusher.
Suddenly, we have a four-game sample of Briggs displaying a star-caliber ceiling on the interior. We already knew he could make plays against the run, and now, he’s adding top-tier pass rushing on top of it. While it remains to be seen whether Briggs can maintain this level of play, he has already established a lofty ceiling for himself.
Now, let’s move onto Thomas, who is already deflecting passes and forcing incompletions at an elite level.
Azareye’h Thomas is putting up Sauce numbers
Since Gardner played his last snap as a Jet against the Panthers, Thomas has gone five consecutive games with a pass deflection. It ties him for the third-longest streak by a rookie in Jets history, already just two games shy of Gardner’s record and one game shy of Darrelle Revis.
On top of challenging Gardner’s rookie record, Thomas is already approaching Gardner’s production in the present.
On the year, Thomas has been credited with five forced incompletions on just 22 targets, per Pro Football Focus. That gives him a forced incompletion rate of 22.7%, which ranks sixth-best out of 121 qualified cornerbacks. One of the only five corners ahead of him? Sauce Gardner, who ranks fourth.
Highest forced incompletion rates among 121 qualified CB, Weeks 1-13 of 2025 (via PFF)
- DJ Turner II, Bengals (31.8%)
- James Pierre, Steelers (30.0%)
- Chidobe Awuzie, Ravens (26.8%)
- Sauce Gardner, Jets/Colts (25.0%)
- Joey Porter Jr., Steelers (24.4%)
- Azareye’h Thomas, Jets (22.7%)
- A.J. Terrell, Falcons (22.6%)
- Quincy Riley, Saints (21.4%)
- Pat Surtain II, Broncos (20.9%)
- Rock Ya-Sin, Lions (20.7%)
It’s also worth noting that Thomas has allowed a completion percentage of just 45.5% on throws into his coverage (10 of 22), tying him with DJ Turner II for fifth-best at the position. That puts him directly above Gardner, who ranks seventh in the category (46.9%).
Lowest completion percentages allowed among 121 qualified CB, Weeks 1-13 of 2025 (via PFF)
- Jamel Dean, TB (41.5%)
- James Pierre, PIT (43.3%)
- Quinyon Mitchell, PHI (43.7%)
- Marcus Harris, TEN (43.8%)
- DJ Turner II, CIN (45.5%)
- Azareye’h Thomas, NYJ (45.5%)
- Sauce Gardner, IND (46.9%)
- Rock Ya-Sin, DET (48.3%)
- Joey Porter Jr., PIT (48.8%)
- Renardo Green, SF (49.1%)
The Jets are positioned to come out as major winners in their blockbuster deals
The Jets dumped two All-Pro performers and handed their roles to a pair of players with a combined zero NFL starts. The realistic expectation was that New York should have suffered immensely in terms of short-term production. In fact, the Jets probably would have been ecstatic to get merely average production out of Briggs and Thomas following the trades.
Instead, here we are: After going 0-7 with Gardner and Williams, the Jets are 3-2 since Gardner and Williams’ last game as a duo, and it’s thanks in large part to Briggs and Thomas, who are playing nearly as well as the stars they replaced.
So far, New York’s realistic expectations couldn’t have been blown further out of the water.
It leaves the Jets in a fantastic position moving forward. They have turned Williams and Gardner into a hoard of long-term assets while nearly replicating their production with two younger, cheaper, in-house solutions. In the future, the Jets will get to pair Briggs and Thomas with the four premium draft picks they acquired in the trades, plus the extra players they can sign with the cap space they opened up.
We still have to see if Briggs and Thomas can maintain their recent production. It’s only been four games. They could crash down to earth over the next five contests.
Still, even if Briggs and Thomas settle in as projected “solid starters” by the end of the year (rather than their current “star” trajectories), New York would come out of the season feeling excellent about the outlook of their deadline moves.
When you trade players like Williams and Gardner, the challenge is figuring out how to both replace the impact you lost and use the acquired assets to net a positive gain on top of simply replacing the traded star. The hope is that you can use the acquired pick(s), freed cap space, and freed snaps to not only replace the player but add at least one more valuable player on top of it, allowing you to net positively from the deal.
The Jets haven’t even been able to use the picks or cap space yielded by Williams and Gardner yet, but they’ve used the freed snaps to quickly identify potential in-house solutions. With Briggs and Thomas’ stellar production, the Jets are already gaining faith that they can sufficiently replace Williams and Gardner, and they’ll still be left with a mountain of assets to accumulate even more talent over the next two years.
First-year general manager Darren Mougey is sitting pretty. He took a bold approach when he executed Order 66 on the inherited star power from the previous regime, and so far, his own padawans are admirably filling the big shoes they’ve stepped into. The fact that Briggs and Thomas were acquired by Mougey is a critical factor in this equation.
Perhaps that is the most promising takeaway here for Jets fans. It’s one thing to stockpile assets, but as fans of this franchise know all too well, it does not matter how many assets a team has if the people in charge of utilizing them are incompetent. In this case, though, the Jets have not only netted a heaping pile of picks, but the GM who will make those picks is inspiring faith that he can be trusted to maximize them.
Time will tell if Briggs and Thomas’ current hot streaks are mere mirages or signs of things to come, but as we sit here today, Mougey is having his cake and eating it, too.
