New York Jets

Three takeaways. All season. Three. The 2025 Jets defense forced exactly three turnovers across seventeen games — zero interceptions, three fumble recoveries — the lowest takeaway total in the entire league. We're going to unpack how a defense that bottomed out at takeaways still wasn't the worst story on this team, what Justin Fields and Breece Hall actually gave you when the offense was upright, and the one structural number that explains why the line of scrimmage broke this season in half. Three and fourteen. No playoffs. Eighth among AFC teams on the outside looking in. The Jets got muffed in 2025, and the data tells you exactly where.

Start with the team by the numbers, because the portrait is brutal and clean. The offense finished at minus 127.6 in total expected points added — how much every snap added or subtracted from scoring chances — twenty-ninth in the league. The defense allowed plus 155 in expected points added, and on defense you want that number deep in the negatives, so plus 155 ranks thirty-first. Three takeaways all year, 4.6 yards per carry on the ground at the sixtieth percentile, third-down conversions just under thirty-five percent. This wasn't boom-or-bust — it was a steady grind with a couple of October miracles: Bengals 39-38 in Week 8, Browns 27-20 in Week 10, Falcons 27-24 in Week 13. Everything else was double-digit losses, and the back half — Jacksonville 48, New Orleans 29, Patriots 42, Buffalo 35 — was a free-fall.

Now let's talk about the passing offense, and this is where the season really tilts. The Jets threw for 162.8 yards per game — bottom-five — and posted a passing expected points added of minus 100.9 across 559 attempts. That's minus 0.18 every dropback, sixteenth percentile. But the number that breaks this unit is sacks allowed: sixty. Sixty on 613 dropbacks, a 9.8 percent sack rate, third-most in football. You cannot run a passing offense when one in every ten dropbacks ends with your quarterback on the grass. Justin Fields started the first nine games and gave you a mixed bag — 128 of 204 for 1,259 yards, 7 touchdowns, just 1 interception, but 27 sacks absorbed and a completion percentage 1.7 points below expected. His signature snap came on a Week 4 fourth-and-one in Miami, third quarter, down 17 to 3 — Fields kept it, scrambled left, 43 yards untouched for a touchdown. Worth plus 6.25 expected points, one of the biggest single snaps of the Jets' season. Then Fields hit injured reserve by Week 12, Tyrod Taylor threw 5 picks in 6 games, and the passing game got muffed by attrition and protection, in that order.

Now let's dig into the rushing offense, because this is the one unit that actually held up. The Jets ran for 123.5 yards per game on 4.6 a carry — tenth in the league, seventy-second percentile. The expected points added still came in at minus 30.9 because the down-and-distance context was usually ugly, but on a per-carry basis this was a legitimate ground game. Breece Hall carried it: 242 attempts, 1,064 yards, 4 rushing touchdowns, and a rush-yards-over-expected of plus 142.4 — meaning he gained 142 more yards than an average back would have on the same carries. A real player having a real year on a team that couldn't protect a quarterback. Steady production, low variance — a bright spot in a dark room.

Next up, the pass defense, and this is where the season truly cratered. The Jets allowed 226.4 passing yards per game, gave up 36 passing touchdowns, and posted a passing expected points added allowed of plus 137 — and remember, on defense you want that negative, so plus 137 is third percentile, among the worst marks in football. Just 26 sacks, also bottom-six. And the takeaway number haunts everything: three. Zero interceptions all season. Three fumble recoveries. League-worst, third percentile. This defense never created a short field, never flipped momentum, never gave a struggling offense a gift. The one moment that captured what could have been came Week 10 against Cleveland — Browns driving, fourth-and-one at the Jets 33, Will McDonald looped through and sacked Dillon Gabriel for a seven-yard loss to seal a 27-to-20 win. Plays like that existed. There just weren't enough of them, and there were almost no balls in the air going the other way.

And the run defense — slightly less catastrophic, but still bad. The Jets allowed 140.9 rushing yards per game and 20 rushing touchdowns, with a rushing expected points added allowed of plus 17.7. Twenty-second percentile — not the bottom of the league, but well below average. The bright spots were short-yardage stands: two fourth-and-one stops against the Bills, a fourth-and-one stuff of Taysom Hill in New Orleans. They defended the goal line and the chain-marker better than they defended the open field. But over seventeen games, opponents ran 511 times for 4.7 a pop. Consistent, week after week. Not boom-or-bust. Just leaky.

The Jets used the second overall pick on the guy who just led the entire country in sacks. Then they doubled down with two more first-rounders on the other side of the ball. Eight picks. Three first-rounders. A defense-led reset — with the most important swing landing on Day 3.

Start at pick two. David Bailey, Texas Tech edge, finished his college career with 14.5 sacks and 19.5 tackles for loss — first nationally in sacks, second in tackles for loss. Not the Big 12. The country. His Relative Athletic Score — a zero-to-ten grade comparing combine and pro-day testing to every player at the position since 1987 — came back at 9.65. Top four percent of edge defenders ever tested. So the Jets got the most productive pass rusher in college football, who also happens to be a top-five-percent athlete, at pick two. The motivator writes itself: in 2025 this defense allowed plus 137.33 expected points through the air and generated just 26 sacks across 17 games. You don't fix that with scheme. You fix it with a guy who lived in the backfield in the Big 12.

The passing game got the next two first-rounders, and the volume of investment matters: in 2025 the Jets' passing offense posted minus 100.03 expected points added and surrendered 60 sacks. They needed weapons. At 16, Kenyon Sadiq, Oregon tight end — 51 catches, 560 yards, 8 touchdowns (7th in the Big Ten), a plus 0.53 per-play predicted points added, and a 9.62 Relative Athletic Score that lands in the top four percent of tight ends ever measured. At 30, Omar Cooper Jr. out of Indiana: 70 catches, 961 yards, 13 touchdowns — 2nd in the Big Ten in receiving scores, 5th nationally. His per-play predicted points added of plus 0.73 is genuinely loud: elite efficiency on real volume in a power conference. The 9.15 Relative Athletic Score puts him in the top nine percent of receivers ever tested. Not a workout warrior with thin tape — a top-five-in-the-country touchdown producer who smashed the combine. Aaron Glenn shrugged at the positional overlap: two tight ends can play, three tight ends can play. The Jets are stacking pass-catchers and letting them sort it out.

Then came the Day 3 swing that might quietly be the most important pick in the class. Round 4, pick 110: Cade Klubnik, Clemson. A three-year starter, 257-of-392 for 2,943 yards, 16 touchdowns to 6 interceptions, plus 97.56 total predicted points added in the ACC. Glenn was direct: they had good grades on Klubnik entering the year, he got hurt early, played hurt through a down Clemson season, and a combine interview sparked a private campus workout. Glenn called the room natural. Said there was a connection. He also wouldn't cap the room behind Geno Smith — competition only. Klubnik's 7.82 Relative Athletic Score is solid, not freaky. The bet is on starts, experience, and a player better than his 2025 box score.

The rest of the defensive haul fills out the back end. Round 2, pick 50: D'Angelo Ponds, Indiana corner, tied for the Big Ten lead in pass breakups with 10 — 20th nationally — and an 8.09 Relative Athletic Score. A corner who plays the ball, dropped into a defense that allowed 36 passing touchdowns. Round 4, pick 103: Darrell Jackson Jr., Florida State, interior bulk against a run defense that surrendered 2,396 rushing yards and 20 rushing touchdowns. Then Round 7, pick 228: VJ Payne, Kansas State safety, whose 9.74 Relative Athletic Score is the highest number in this entire class — top three percent of strong safeties ever measured. Seventh-round dart, elite athletic floor.

The offensive line got one late investment: Round 6, pick 188, Anez Cooper, Miami guard, joining a unit that surrendered 60 sacks and absorbed 116 quarterback hits in 2025. A developmental body for a room that needed bodies.

Pick of the draft is Bailey. You can argue Cooper Jr., who profiles as the highest-floor receiver in this class on production-plus-testing. You can argue Sadiq, whose tight end athletic profile is genuinely rare. Bailey wins on positional scarcity and the size of the hole. Edge rushers who lead the nation in sacks while testing in the top four percent athletically do not exist on the board at pick two — they go first overall. The Jets generated 26 sacks across 17 games last year. One player isn't supposed to move that number. Bailey might.

The question for 2026 is whether the pass rush actually arrives. The Jets spent their highest pick and a chunk of their defensive capital on getting after the quarterback and taking the ball away — this defense generated just 3 takeaways across 17 games in 2025, which is functionally broken. If Bailey is who the tape and testing say he is, and if Ponds plays the ball the way he did at Indiana, the math on this pass defense looks completely different by November. The bigger stress test is the offensive line. One Day 3 guard against 60 sacks allowed is not a real answer — and whoever's playing quarterback, Geno Smith, Klubnik, or someone Mougey adds before camp, is going to feel it.