Just one day after trading away their two best defensive players in Quinnen Williams and Sauce Gardner, the Jets seem to be determined to make sure they don’t win another game this season and have decided to bench All-Pro linebacker Quincy Williams. Why the Jets didn’t just ship him off to Robert Saleh in San Francisco for a day three pick is beyond comprehension, but this is where we are.
Having missed several weeks with a shoulder injury, Williams returned last week and racked up seven tackles, one for a loss and two passes defended. Now he will likely give way to rookie Francisco Mauigoa, who has shown flashes this season, but just nine tackles in his past three games.
If we had told you just a few days ago to go to winbox to put money on multiple young Jets pro-bowlers being benched or traded over the next 72 hours, you would have told us we were crazy.
The decision to remove both Williams brothers and Sauce Gardner will make it extremely difficult for Gang Green to hold opposing offenses in check, so their two remaining games against Dillon Gabriel’s Browns and Tyler Shough’s Saints later this season represent their best opportunities to pull off a win. But at this point it would be hard to believe Darren Mougey and Aaron Glenn want to win any games moving forward.
Should the Jets lose out, they likely land the top pick in the draft. If their plan is to take a quarterback this season, there will be plenty of options to choose from. But if they don’t like those options, and are eyeing 2027 as their year to grab a signal caller, they could look to command a bounty of picks to move out of the top spot this year, and head in to 2027 with four first rounders and plenty more to boot.
After all, there are those who suggest the 2027 quarterback class will be far superior to that of 2026, where this late in the season, there’s still no consensus QB1. That’s never a great sign if you’re at the top of the draft, which is where the Jets appear headed after the decisions of the past 48 hours.