With six days until the 2026 NFL trade deadline, most of the chatter surrounding the New York Jets is regarding players who could be sold off for assets, like running back Breece Hall or edge rusher Will McDonald.
However, the Jets could absolutely be shoppers, too. Of course, it seems unlikely that the Jets will be shopping at Sak’s Fifth Avenue, but they might browse Target to see if they can get a trusty, long-term T-shirt on the cheap.
It won’t wow anyone, but in three years, when they wear it to the gym for the 100th time, they will realize it was some of the best 10 dollars they ever spent. Meanwhile, other teams will regret backing up the Brink’s truck for that fancy sweater they wore once before spilling sauce on it.
The Jets will have a plethora of holes to address in 2027, and they don’t have to wait until the offseason to start filling them. They can use the trade deadline to identify players at positions of need who have some sort of upside and can be acquired on the cheap, with the idea of using the second half of 2026 to audition them for roles on the 2027 depth chart.
Here are three potential trade targets for the Jets who fit that bill.
EDGE Arnold Ebiketie, Eagles
The Jets’ EDGE unit will be among their top priorities in 2027. It’s a premium position, and the Jets have very little to bank on.
The only rotation players under contract are David Bailey and Joseph Ossai. As the second overall pick, Bailey will likely be a starter next year, but his all-around game remains a work in progress. Ossai shouldn’t be viewed as starting material after an injury-plagued season in which he has struggled when available.
Kingsley Enagbare has been a solid starter for the Jets, but he will be a free agent, so the Jets will have to convince him to come back instead of leaving on the open market, unless they extend him first. Will McDonald is under contract, although he is best suited as a situational pass rusher at this point.
The Jets need bodies here. In particular, they need bodies who can simply play decent, fundamentally-sound football, even if they aren’t flashy. Bailey and McDonald bring plenty of flash at times, but on a down-to-down basis, the defense has suffered from both players’ inability to maintain gap integrity in both phases.
Arnold Ebiketie, a former second-round pick of the Falcons in 2022, could be worth trying out for that role.
Ebiketie, 27, is a rotational edge rusher for the Eagles. He has appeared in all eight games with no starts, but he has played 49% of the defensive snaps. While Ebiketie does not offer a high ceiling in any particular way, he is a decent edge-setter; out of 116 qualifiers at the EDGE position this season, Ebiketie ranks 58th in Pro Football Focus’ run defense grade (62.8) and 44th in run-stop rate (6.6%).
The Jets could absolutely use a run defender of that caliber in their rotation, given that Enagbare is the only average-or-better run defender in the EDGE unit right now.
It’s been a quiet pass rushing season for Ebiketie, who has no sacks, two quarterback hits, and 10 total pressures on 115 pass-rush snaps, but he showed far more productivity for the Falcons. Across four seasons in Atlanta, Ebiketie averaged 4.1 sacks and 10.3 quarterback hits per season despite mostly playing a backup role (he averaged about 250 pass-rush snaps per year and started only 18% of his games), which are solid numbers for a rotational edge rusher.
In 2025, Ebiketie’s 16.8% pass-rush win rate ranked 12th among 129 qualified edge rushers (min. 100 pass-rush snaps). He did that while playing only 10.8 pass-rush snaps per game, which shows that he is the type of defensive lineman who is at his best when used in small spurts to provide jolts of energy.
Ebiketie is due to be a free agent after signing a one-year, $4.3 million contract with Philadelphia this offseason. With the Eagles circling the drain and their starting quarterback out for the year, they could be enticed to ship out a defensive player on an expiring contract for draft assets.
Giving Ebiketie a half-season to show if he can fill a spot in the 2027 EDGE rotation seems like a worthwhile way for the Jets to use a Day 3 draft pick.
C Luke Wypler, Browns
Offensive line depth will be among the Jets’ main needs on offense, particularly on the interior. Center is an especially critical hole.
The Jets essentially neglected interior offensive line depth throughout the 2026 offseason until making a last-ditch trade for guard/center Jordan Meredith in August. They’ve already paid the price for that neglect; Meredith was forced to start four games at left guard due to Dylan Parham’s injury, and he struggled mightily, sinking the entire offensive line’s performance over that span.
Luckily, the Jets have not yet had to call on a backup center, as Josh Myers has started all eight games. If they do, though, they will be in dire straits.
Meredith would be the first man up, which is troubling, given that guard was considered his better position coming to New York, and he has been a liability there for the Jets. Outside of Meredith, the only other option on the roster is undrafted rookie Nick Dawkins, who is on the practice squad. They could go back to Joe Tippmann, who started his career at center, but the team does not seem interested in moving him out of the guard spot.
New York decided not to strengthen the backup interior offensive line despite not even having a solid starting center in place. Myers was a player who clearly should have been upgraded upon, but the Jets did nothing to push him. The first eight games of 2026 have not validated the Jets’ decision to run him back out there as the starter.
Simply put, the Jets need help at center, and they can get started on that now.
Cleveland’s Luke Wypler seems like an attainable trade target who could be worth evaluating over the second half of the season. While Wypler is currently the Browns’ backup center, they’d be equipped to part with him if they receive an appealing trade offer, as they have fifth-round rookie center Parker Brailsford on the roster.
Wypler, 25, was a sixth-round pick of the Browns in 2023. The New Jersey native has started seven of his 30 career appearances. He started one game this season in place of starter Elgton Jenkins, and he thrived, posting a 79.9 overall grade at Pro Football Focus in the Browns’ Week 4 statement win over the Steelers. Wypler was the Browns’ second-highest-graded offensive player in the game.
Wypler will be an unrestricted free agent after the season. While the Browns have the AFC North realistically within reach, they know they are ahead of schedule and still building for the long-term. If they are offered a draft pick for a backup center on an expiring contract, they could be tempted to take it, knowing that one of their own draft picks is ready to step up into the role.
Meanwhile, for the Jets, Wypler is an appealing target to give an early tryout for a role that they will be looking to fill in 2027. At the very least, they can see what he looks like on the practice field and determine whether he is worth bringing back as a backup or competitor for the starting spot. But if Myers goes down or plays poorly enough, Wypler could get a chance to play and audition himself for a role in 2027, whether that’s as a backup or starter.
Like Ebiketie, Wypler is the type of player worth taking a flier on for a late Day 3 choice, due to the possibility that he could fill a long-term backup spot the same way that a sixth or seventh-round pick would. The fact that he’s a pending free agent complicates matters, but if a player lands with a new team, earns a role, succeeds in it, and is promised a role moving forward, he could be enticed to re-sign before hitting the open market.
DT Maason Smith, Falcons
Defensive tackle might be the Jets’ most pressing need in 2027. The softness of the defensive interior has been the roster’s most consistently noticeable weakness this year.
The unit has been weak against both the run and the pass, but the lack of pass-rush juice has been particularly crushing, given the importance of interior pass rushing in today’s NFL. According to PFF, the Jets’ defensive tackles have combined for a 5.2% pass-rush win rate, placing 28th among defensive tackle units. Opposing quarterbacks routinely have plenty of room to step up in the pocket.
New York could be interested in using the second half of the year to try out defensive tackles with the upside to become rotational pass rushers. They can wait to use their premium offseason assets to invest heavily in the multi-faceted starters they will need, but it’s never too early to start auditioning players who can fill roles in the back end of the rotation.
Atlanta’s Maason Smith is an intriguing target if the Jets are particularly interested in interior pass-rush upside. His resume carries plenty of concerns (as you expect for a player who would be available in this type of trade), but the pass-rush potential is fascinating.
A second-round pick of the Jaguars in 2024, Smith struggled to carve out a role, starting seven of 24 games. This April, he was traded to the Falcons in a swap of 2024 second-round defensive tackles, with Ruke Orhorhoro heading back to Jacksonville.
Smith has started all eight games for the Falcons. The LSU product, who only turned 24 this month, has still struggled with run defense and penalties, but he has shown a sneakily high ceiling as a pass rusher. The box score shows just one sack in eight starts, but his 11.5% pass-rush win rate ranks 17th among 85 qualified defensive tackles (min. 100 pass-rush snaps).
Smith has been especially effective in true pass set situations, placing 13th with an 18.6% pass-rush win rate on those plays, one spot behind Quinnen Williams.
The concerns are Smith’s 49.2 run defense grade at PFF and his four penalties, including three neutral zone infractions and an encroachment call. Those are legitimate concerns, but at a fresh 24 years old, a coaching staff could still see those problems as fixable. His pass-rush efficiency is much harder to coach.
Atlanta is squarely in the mix for the prestigious NFC South (Of .500) division title, but at 3-5 and in the first year of the Kevin Stefanski era, trading a flawed defensive starter for future draft assets could be appealing to them. The Falcons had limited assets in their first draft under Stefanski, making six picks, including no first-rounder, and in 2027, they don’t have any extra picks coming in.
For New York, Smith is an appealing developmental tryout player. He offers upside in a premium skill that the Jets sorely lack, and while he is a highly flawed player, his ripe age could draw a coaching staff into believing they can build him up. Plus, as opposed to Ebiketie and Wypler, Smith is under contract for the 2027 season.
While it may not be any of these three players in particular, don’t be surprised if the Jets send off Day 3 draft capital (perhaps conditional) for a player or two of this mold.
