Can you name the last time that a New York Jets first-round pick posted a full sack in his NFL debut?

Take a minute, because it’s been a while.

The answer?

That would be Tennessee product Shaun Ellis, the 12th overall pick of the 2000 draft. On Sept. 3, 2000, Ellis strip-sacked Brett Favre in the second quarter of what became a 20-16 Jets victory at Lambeau Field over the Green Bay Packers.

Ellis remains the only Jets first-round pick to post a full sack in his NFL debut. He is also the only Jets player, regardless of draft position, to post a strip-sack in his NFL debut.

Could 2026 second-overall pick David Bailey join Ellis on both of those lists?

Bailey’s NFL debut matchup with the Tennessee Titans will give him an excellent opportunity to do so.

David Bailey could make a huge play against the Titans

Across two preseason appearances, the Jets had Bailey line up on the left side of the defensive line (across from the right tackle) on all but one of his 20 defensive snaps.

Assuming this holds in the regular season, it means that Bailey’s primary matchup on Sunday will be Titans right tackle JC Latham.

The Alabama product was chosen seventh overall in the 2024 draft. Tennessee started Latham at left tackle for all 17 games in his rookie year before moving him to right tackle in 2025, where he started all 13 of his appearances.

Latham graded out as a decent starter, according to Pro Football Focus, earning a 65.5 overall grade. That was good enough for 20th out of 32 qualified right tackles (min. 500 snaps).

However, Latham was extremely prone to costly plays. Not only did he lead the NFL with 14 penalties, but he also tied for the second-most sacks allowed among right tackles with eight, according to PFF.

With those eight sacks coming in just 13 games, Latham allowed 0.62 sacks per game, an extremely high number for an individual lineman. That would put him on pace to allow 10.5 sacks per 17 games.

It is worth noting, though, that Latham’s individual pass protection wasn’t considered too shabby. His 68.0 pass-blocking grade placed 18th out of 32 qualified right tackles.

The fact that Latham allowed so many sacks was more the fault of his quarterback, Cam Ward.

In his rookie year, Ward averaged a lofty 3.00 seconds to throw, creating ample opportunities for pass rushers to get home. Once they did get home, Ward did a brutal job of getting rid of the football. He allowed 23.9% of his pressured dropbacks to result in sacks, the third-highest rate among qualified quarterbacks.

This explains why Latham’s numbers look the way they do.

When graded for the quality of his individual pass protection, Latham was considered a nearly league-average starter. But Latham still allowed a massive sack total, because a) Ward’s time-to-throw amplified the number of reps in which the defense had enough time to get pressure, and b) if Latham did allow pressure, Ward often allowed it to result in a sack.

The Jets experienced the same problem with Justin Fields, who had an even higher time-to-throw (3.09) and a similar pressure-to-sack rate (23.3%). It explains why Armand Membou allowed eight sacks despite ranking 11th-best among right tackles with a solid 73.8 pass-blocking grade.

Latham was tagged for allowing just one quarterback hit last season. It means that of the nine times he allowed the quarterback to hit the ground, eight were sacks rather than post-throw knockdowns, which is an absurd ratio that falls on the quarterback rather than the lineman. Once a rusher gets past his blocker, his final result—hurry, hit, or sack—is out of the blocker’s hands and falls entirely on the quarterback.

So, what is the message for Bailey?

Simple: Beat Latham, and there’s a very good chance you will finish with a sack on Ward.

This is especially true for a player like Bailey, who has proven himself to be a fantastic finisher. Bailey led the country with 14.5 sacks in 2025, and in the preseason, he only needed 11 pass-rush snaps to record a solo sack. With his explosiveness off the line and overall speed, Bailey closes ground quickly and tends not to let his prey escape.

Not only does Bailey have a strong chance to get at least one sack on Sunday, but he will have an opportunity to make that sack a particularly memorable one.

On top of his proneness for holding the ball too long and allowing pressures to become sacks, Ward had another alarming tendency in his rookie year: losing the football.

Ward led the NFL with 11 fumbles in 2025. They tended to be bad fumbles—rather than low-risk fumbles like botched snaps or the ball slipping out of bounds on a scramble—as Ward lost seven of them, which led the NFL.

In fact, 10 of Ward’s 11 fumbles came on sacks. That means he yielded a whopping 0.59 strip-sacks per game, essentially giving his opponent a better than 50% chance of strip-sacking him on any given Sunday.

It’s just another reason that Bailey is an intimidating predator for the young quarterback. Bailey racked up eight forced fumbles over his last two seasons in college.

Shaun Ellis could have company in the Jets’ history books in a few days.