Once again, the New York Jets are betting on upside in the wide receiver room.
Despite a clear need for help behind Garrett Wilson for the fourth straight offseason, the Jets elected not to add any veteran wideouts who would bring a proven track record to the WR2 role. Instead, the Jets are rolling on the dice on a collection of high-ceiling young players.
In the first round of the draft, New York selected both tight end Kenyon Sadiq and wide receiver Omar Cooper Jr., becoming the first team since the 1969 Los Angeles Rams to select a tight end and a wide receiver in the first round.
Given the lack of proven pass catchers in the receiver room, the Jets are hoping that Sadiq and Cooper will immediately be ready to carry heavy workloads in the pass game. It’s a lot of pressure to place on two rookies, making it a risky move for New York, but the ceiling is high if it works out, given how athletic and talented they both are.
This strategy does not revolve solely around Sadiq and Cooper, though. The rookies are not the only athletic young pass catchers in Florham Park with a high ceiling entering 2026.
We would be remiss not to mention Adonai Mitchell, who was acquired by the Jets in the Sauce Gardner trade.
A 2024 second-round pick of the Colts, Mitchell was in the doghouse by the midway point of his second season, deeming him expendable for the team that drafted him. For the Jets, though, he was a tantalizing throw-in to a deal that was centered around two first-round picks. With Wilson injured and no other noteworthy receivers on the roster, the Jets had a chance to evaluate Mitchell for about half a season.
Quietly, he showed more potential than many fans may have realized.
In the box score, Mitchell did not do anything to write home about. In eight games with the Jets, he caught 24 of 58 targets for 301 yards and two touchdowns.
To understand the potential that Mitchell displayed, you have to go beyond the box score.
According to ESPN Analytics’ “open score”, Mitchell was one of the NFL’s better separators at the wide receiver position in 2025. He posted an open score of 67 (out of a maximum of 100), tying him for 19th among 110 qualified wide receivers.
This was a continuation of Mitchell’s rookie year, when his 82 open score was good enough for eighth at the position.
Across the past two seasons, Mitchell has an open score of 80, placing him seventh at the position. He trails only Chris Olave (81), Zay Flowers (82), Stefon Diggs (84), A.J. Brown (84), Tyreek Hill (84), and Malik Nabers (90).
Not bad company.
It shows the lofty potential that Mitchell has. When it comes to creating opportunities, he is pretty darn good, and the tape backs it up. Unfortunately, he just hasn’t received competent quarterbacking to translate his separation into production.
We can’t just blame everything on Mitchell’s quarterbacks, though. He still has some major weaknesses in his game that need to be addressed.
As good as Mitchell has been at separating, he has ranged from unimpressive to poor in the other areas of the wide receiver position.
Alongside open score, ESPN Analytics also tracks “catch score” and “YAC score”. From 2024-25, Mitchell ranked 90th out of 94 qualified wide receivers in catch score (22). His YAC score is average, ranking 44th out of 94 qualifiers (44).
Mitchell needs to improve tremendously in the hands department. While many of his missed opportunities are due to poor throws (or quarterbacks failing to even target him), he often fails to come up with the ball on the rare occasion that he does receive a good throw.
According to PFF, Mitchell had six drops in the 2025 season. His 15.4% drop rate was the second-worst among wide receivers with at least 70 targets. In his rookie year, Mitchell had four drops and a 14.8% drop rate.
The good news is that Mitchell’s 2025 season featured improvement at contested catches. As a rookie, Mitchell failed to secure any of his five contested targets, but in 2025, he caught 5-of-10. That’s a positive sign moving forward.
The drops, though, have to cease. Every receiver drops a pass now and then, but Mitchell drops far too many, especially for a player who is often targeted on high-value passes down the field. It’s one thing to drop a screen, but it’s a completely different thing to drop a well-placed deep shot. Those opportunities cannot be squandered.
Overall, Mitchell is a sneakily intriguing piece for the Jets’ offense going into 2026. In an offense where competition for targets will be wide-open beyond Garrett Wilson, Mitchell has a golden opportunity to prove himself in the summer and stake his claim to the No. 2 role in the passing game.
To secure that spot, Mitchell must impress the Jets’ coaching staff with his improved hands. New York’s coaches know that he can separate with the best of them. What they need to know to trust him as a featured deep threat is that he will actually catch the ball when it drops in his bread basket.
He can get open all day, but it will never matter if he continues to be rated as one of the five worst catchers at the wide receiver position.
Still, Mitchell’s elite open score demonstrates the loftiness of his ceiling. Separation is the basis of a receiver’s potential. The more often you get open, the more opportunities you create for the offense to target you.
Receivers who can create their own separation at a high frequency do not have to rely on the scheme to generate their opportunities. That’s what distances the league’s best receivers from the average ones: whether or not you can create opportunities independently from the scheme.
Hands, though, are another crucial separator. Some of the greatest receivers in NFL history may not have been the best separators, but since their hands were so strong, they didn’t have to be open to be open.
And when your hands are weak, you are never truly open.
For Mitchell, combining his top-end separation with top-end hands should be the only goal throughout the offseason of work. If he can do that, the sky is the limit.
All eyes will be on Sadiq and Cooper when training camp begins, but don’t overlook Mitchell as another high-ceiling dice-roll in this Jets passing attack. Rather than settle for high-floor veterans with limited upside, New York has elected to go all-in on potential with the offensive weaponry. Mitchell is part of that vision.
With a star duo of Wilson and Hall already intact, the Jets don’t need to hit the jackpot on every one of their lottery picks. They would love it if just one of Sadiq, Cooper, Mitchell, and even Mason Taylor emerged as a standout, while the other three players simply thrive in their roles.
Perhaps, though, it can be argued that Mitchell’s ceiling is as high as any player in that bunch. When a guy separates at a top-10 level over a two-year span (with plenty of missed TD opportunities on film to back the numbers up), especially as a second-round talent who has yet to turn 24, he cannot be written off as a potential stud—not yet.
It all comes down to whether Mitchell can become more reliable at the first part of a wide receiver’s job description… receiving the football.
