The Jets will host the Browns in Week 9 following their bye week.
But Gang Green has already begun to turn the page to 2026 after two stunning blockbuster trades ahead of Sunday’s game against Cleveland.
With nine games remaining and a 1-7 record, the Jets traded Sauce Gardner to the Colts and dealt Quinnen Williams to the Cowboys. The Jets acquired wide receiver Adonai Mitchell from the Colts and Mazi Smith from the Cowboys.
What the Jets also received was draft capital, which general manager Darren Mougey and coach Aaron Glenn hope will be the catalyst to help the team emerge from the perpetual black hole they’ve been in for the past 15 seasons.
When he became coach, Glenn told fans to “Get used to winning.” This week, he completely backpedaled by saying he didn’t mean immediately.
“Once you get involved and get your team, you start to figure out exactly how you want your team to look and how you want it to operate in totality,” Glenn said on Wednesday. “To me, again, this is a game of change, and no matter what the situation is, we’re going to look to do everything we can to improve our team, and however we can do that, me and Mougey are going to talk about it and we’re going to make a decision to move forward.
“There’s talent here, we understand that. When guys call and they inquire, our job is to listen, and this is one of those opportunities where we had two of our high-profile guys that we got pretty good compensation for, and we listened and we talked through it, and we just made the move. We’re going to continue to operate that way, no matter what the situation is, but more than anything, we want to make sure that we build this team in our vision the way that we see it.”
The Jets may be downplaying the idea that they are in rebuild mode, but that’s the reality after trading Gardner and Williams. Both were popular players who were under contract for the next few years.
Sure, the Jets acquired young talent in Mitchell and Smith, whom they will evaluate to determine if they will be part of their long-term future. However, Sunday’s game against the Browns, and really the last nine games of the 2025 season, are inconsequential in terms of the Jets’ future.
“I wouldn’t call it a teardown,” Mougey said on Tuesday.
But it is a teardown. Something Mougey and Glenn should have done and been forthcoming about when they were hired back in January. Sure, the Jets fans would have complained. But this was never going to be a quick fix.
Glenn and Mougey quickly released Aaron Rodgers weeks after becoming coach and general manager. They also released linebacker C.J. Mosley and wide receiver Davante Adams. That’s when the Jets should have just entirely ripped the Band-Aid off a roster that finished 5-12.
This season has been an utter disaster, but the Jets have been riding high the last two weeks. In Week 8, Gang Green won its first game of the season after an emotional comeback victory against Cincinnati.
Justin Fields played well against the Bengals (21-of-32 for 244 yards and a TD, but the Jets’ long-term solution at quarterback is not on this roster. With five first-round picks between 2026 and 2027, the Jets have all the ammunition to move up the draft boards to select any quarterback of their liking. They also have enough picks to go after a veteran quarterback.
Now, they will look to find their next franchise quarterback, who can help them reach the playoffs for the first time since 2010. The Jets have tried to find a franchise quarterback in various ways over the past seven years. They had drafted Sam Darnold, only for Todd Bowles and Adam Gase to be fired, and then they hired Robert Saleh. Along with GM Joe Douglas, Saleh ultimately chose to find a quarterback of their own, and they traded Darnold and drafted Zach Wilson with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft.
The Jets have also seen this movie before, after having five first-round picks in 2021 and 2022 (Wilson, Alijah Vera-Tucker, Gardner, Garrett Wilson, Jermaine Johnson). But since that time, the Jets have a 24-52 record.
Gang Green finished with a top-five defense under Saleh for most of his tenure before he was fired in October of 2024. The Jets’ defense is currently 21st in yards (335.4) and 27th in points allowed (27.6).
But if the Jets don’t find a franchise quarterback in the next two years, nothing else will matter.
Glenn has been here before when he was with the Lions. Before his first season as defensive coordinator, and before Dan Campbell’s first game as coach, Detroit traded Matthew Stafford to the Rams in exchange for a first-round draft pick in 2022 and 2023, a third-round pick in 2021, and quarterback Jared Goff. The move worked out for both the Lions and Rams, who remain Super Bowl contenders years after the trade.
Fairly or unfairly, the success of the Glenn and Mougey era will be determined not only by how productive the Jets will be on the field, but also by whether they can finally find a franchise quarterback. If they cannot do either of those, the Jets will remain in the same hamster wheel of mediocrity they’ve been in the last decade and a half.
