The New York Jets dove into free agency once the legal tampering period started. They quickly snatched up Justin Fields to be their quarterback for the next two seasons and then started to add pieces to fill out their roster.
I have not been shy or quiet about how much I dislike the moves they are making. There are some, like the Justin Fields signing, where I hate everything about it, but I understand it. Then there are some like the three-year deal given to Brandon Stephens that I can’t for the life of me figure out why they would do that. He’s been terrible and his contract isn’t reflective of that.
More and more the Jets made signings that had me shaking my head and trying to do a deep dive into finding out what the team saw in the player to make him worthy of signing to a decent team in the first few days of free agency. It didn’t make sense.
Then there are the players the Jets have let go. Haason Reddick? I get it. Morgan Moses? He got a lot of money from the Patriots that the Jets weren’t willing to match that amount. Davante Adams? His contract just couldn’t be kept on the books especially without Aaron Rodgers there to feed him the ball.
D.J. Reed? That one hurts, but it wasn’t as if he was so overpaid in his new deal with the Detroit Lions. In the end, Reed got $4 million more per year than the Jets gave Stephens, but Reed is a Pro Bowl caliber player and Stephens is a coverage liability.
So, why? Why let those talented players go and bring in these particular players? Connection to Mougey and Glenn? Nope. None of them came from Detroit or the Denver Broncos where those two were. Scheme fit? Nope. They are all different types of players with different strengths. Then I was looking at the list as a whole and it hit me.
All of the players the Jets are bringing in are young. They are all 28 years old or younger. Most of them (Javon Kinlaw who was terrible last season and Brandin Echols who fell out of favor with the team being the lone exceptions) are 28 years old or older. It’s as if the Jets are trying to force a youth a movement through free agency.
Last year the Jets had the 22nd youngest roster in the NFL at an average age of 26.51 years old. I imagine when your two quarterbacks, kicker and punter are all 35 and over, that number skews a little bit.
It is worth noting, "old" doesn't mean "bad," and "young" doesn't mean "good." In 2021 the Jets had the youngest roster in the NFL and it led them to a 4-13 season. Meanwhile, the last two seasons the Green Bay Packers had the youngest roster in the NFL and they finished 9-8 and 11-6 respectively and made the playoffs in both seasons. Age doesn’t reflect wins and losses.
A youth movement for a team is supposed to come through the draft. You draft a lot of young players with talent and develop them to be contributors to the football team. Because they are on rookie contracts, they are relatively cheap, and the team then has money to supplement the team with free agents.
The Jets seem to think you can sign a bunch of young players and force a youth movement by simply lowering the age of the team overall. It doesn’t work that way. Young and terrible is still terrible.
Normally, getting younger isn’t a bad thing for a football team, but at some point, the focus needs to be on talent and not on age. The Jets seemed to have forgotten that with their early days of free agency.
