Comparing every NY Jets position when Douglas was hired vs. now (2024)

The ink has officially dried on the New York Jets’ Joe Douglas era.

With Douglas gone fishing on the Jersey Shore, let’s grade Douglas’ handling of every position on the Jets’ roster by comparing how the roster looked when he inherited it versus how it looks today. For Douglas’ inherited roster, we will refer to the Jets’ roster ahead of the 2019 season opener.

Quarterback

Depth chart when hired: Sam Darnold, Trevor Siemian, Luke Falk (PS)
Depth chart now: Aaron Rodgers, Tyrod Taylor, Adrian Martinez (PS), Jordan Travis (NFI)
Grade: F

Douglas cannot be knocked for a lack of effort at this position. After trading Sam Darnold, he wasted no time getting his own franchise quarterback in Zach Wilson. Then, after just two years of Wilson, Douglas tried to capitalize on the team’s apparent window of contention by trading for Aaron Rodgers.

Unfortunately, effort doesn’t win games; results do. And here are the results: after the 2019 Jets ranked 32nd in passing DVOA, the 2020-24 Jets ranked 31st, 29th, 25th, 31st, and 21st.

Douglas invested a lot of capital into this position and got marginal improvement out of it. While you can defend him with caveats here and there – yes, he did not have many other options beyond Wilson in the 2021 draft, and yes, Rodgers was a reasonable gamble – these are terrible results, and results are what general managers should be graded on when they have five years to get things right.

Douglas also gets more points knocked off for his inexcusable neglect of the backup quarterback position in 2023. His wasted fourth-round pick on James Morgan in 2020 is another blemish on his quarterback resume.

Running back

Depth chart when hired: Le’Veon Bell, Bilal Powell, Ty Montgomery, Trenton Cannon, Valentine Holmes (PS)
Depth chart now: Breece Hall, Braelon Allen, Isaiah Davis, Israel Abanikanda, Kene Nwangwu (PS)
Grade: B

Douglas was ridden with Mike Maccagnan’s terrible Le’Veon Bell contract and a complete lack of youth behind him. It took him a few years, but Douglas got the Jets’ running back position to a better place.

The La’Mical Perine pick was a bust, while the Michael Carter pick held the fort down for one year, but in 2022, Douglas finally landed a quality long-term starter in Breece Hall. The 2024 season has left doubts over whether Hall should truly be considered a “star,” but he undoubtedly has the potential to be one, and at just 23 years old, his best could still be ahead of him. At the very least, he is a good starter.

Behind Hall, Douglas has the Jets set up with a pair of intriguing young runners in Allen and Davis.

However, Douglas needs to have points taken off for his baffling signing of Dalvin Cook in 2023, which left the Jets hamstrung throughout the entire season with a useless RB2.

Douglas did a decent job here. The grade would be higher if Hall were not having a down season.

Wide receiver

Depth chart when hired: Robby Anderson, Jamison Crowder, Quincy Enunwa, Braxton Berrios, Josh Bellamy, Jeff Smith (PS)
Depth chart now: Garrett Wilson, Davante Adams, Allen Lazard (IR), Xavier Gipson, Malachi Corley, Irvin Charles, Jason Brownlee (PS), Brandon Smith (PS)
Grade: D

The Jets’ wide receiver unit was in dire straits when Douglas took over. At first glance, it looks a lot better on paper today than it did in 2019. However, I don’t think the improvement is nearly as strong as it should be, given the time and resources that Douglas had to work with.

Garrett Wilson was a great selection in 2022. Other than that, though, Douglas never made a quality move at wide receiver.

Douglas began his tenure by whiffing on two consecutive second-round picks in Denzel Mims and Elijah Moore. He struck out on Corey Davis with a sizable contract in 2021, who was solid when he played but ultimately gave the Jets just 22 games. The Mike Williams signing was not a substantial long-term investment, but they signed him to a $10 million deal only for him to yield no touchdowns and a measly fifth-round pick.

It seems nice on paper to have Davante Adams as your WR2, but he is only here as a result of Douglas whiffing on all of his prior moves at receiver. Even if you don’t think the Adams trade was initiated by Douglas, the Jets wouldn’t consider making the Adams trade if they had Mims or Moore pan out as the long-term WR2 next to Wilson. Since neither of them did, the Jets had to panic and trade a third-round pick for a soon-to-be 32-year-old, and the return on investment has been poor thus far.

Adams is averaging just 55.6 yards per game in five appearances as a Jet, which would be his worst mark since 2015, and he only has one touchdown. While Jamison Crowder-to-Davante Adams looks like an incredible leap on paper, Crowder averaged 52.1 yards per game with 6 touchdowns in 2019, so it’s actually not much of an improvement at all when evaluating on cold-hard results instead of popularity.

Allen Lazard has played fine with Aaron Rodgers this year but he remains one of the league’s most drop-prone receivers, and his 2023 season was awful. I’d argue that Robby Anderson’s body of work with the Jets was easily better than Lazard’s to this point.

Tight end

Depth chart when hired: Ryan Griffin, Daniel Brown, Trevon Wesco, Chris Herndon (Suspended)
Depth chart now: Tyler Conklin, Jeremy Ruckert, Kenny Yeboah, Brenden Bates (PS), Zack Kuntz (PS)
Grade: D-

The Jets likely had the NFL’s worst tight end unit in 2019. Now, they have a… bottom-5 one?

Tyler Conklin was a solid signing in 2022, as he is poised to complete his three-year contract with a nice run as the Jets’ clear-cut TE1, but he is nothing groundbreaking. Other than that, Douglas has not done a darn thing to improve this position.

For two years after 2019, Douglas continued neglecting the tight end unit. The 2020 group looked exactly the same as the 2019 one. In 2021, despite hiring a new coaching staff that was poised to rely on 12 personnel, all Douglas did was sign Tyler Kroft, who is no longer in the NFL. His neglect of the tight end position in the 2021 offseason was crippling for the Jets’ offense in a season where they needed to build the best possible infrastructure around a rookie quarterback.

Douglas finally remembered tight ends exist in 2022 when he signed Conklin and drafted Jeremy Ruckert in the third round. Ruckert has turned into a bust, though. He has 30 receptions and zero touchdowns in 35 career games and is one of the NFL’s lowest-graded blockers at tight end.

With five years to improve on a unit that had nowhere to go but up, this is an embarrassingly small amount of progress.

Offensive line

Depth chart when hired: Kelvin Beachum, Kelechi Osemele, Ryan Kalil, Brian Winters, Brandon Shell (Starters) — Brent Qvale, Alex Lewis, Jonotthan Harrison, Tom Compton, Chuma Edoga, Calvin Anderson (PS), Ben Braden (PS)
Depth chart now: Olu Fashanu, John Simpson, Joe Tippmann, Alijah Vera-Tucker, Morgan Moses (Starters) — Tyron Smith, Max Mitchell, Connor McGovern, Jake Hanson, Carter Warren, Kohl Levao (PS), Obinna Eze (PS), Zack Bailey (PS), Matthew Cindric (PS)
Grade: C-

On paper, the leap here is legitimately strong. The 2019 offensive line was arguably the NFL’s worst. The 2024 offensive line has not performed up to expectations, but it’s somewhat decent and has plenty of talent; coaching may be largely at fault for the underperformance. Going into 2025, most of the current offensive line starters will likely return, which is a testament to its talent.

The problem is that it took five years to get here.

While the offensive line looks at least respectable on paper today, there was never a point where it could be labeled respectable over Douglas’ first four years. Shaky drafting, poor signings, and occasional neglect made it a constant liability despite it being Douglas’ apparent specialty. And when we say the unit was a “liability,” we’re talking four straight years of bottom-five play, not just mediocrity.

The Jets’ offensive line remained a massive weakness until five years of heavy investments finally “paid off” in 2024, yielding a unit that isn’t great, but at least isn’t terrible – which is still very underwhelming relative to the time and capital invested into it.

Douglas began his tenure by whiffing on the Mekhi Becton pick. While he eventually found two present-day starters with first-round pick Alijah Vera-Tucker and second-round pick Joe Tippmann, he never unearthed a diamond-in-the-rough offensive line starter past the second round across five drafts.

Douglas’ free agent track record with the offensive line was poor. Laken Tomlinson was a crippling miss, giving the Jets bottom-of-the-barrel production for top-tier money. Greg Van Roten was a backup-level player signed to be a starter. George Fant had one great season but was otherwise injury-prone and inconsistent. Duane Brown was overpaid for his age and should not have been relied upon as a starter. Tyron Smith was a whiff this year, although rumor has it that Woody Johnson pushed for the move.

Douglas’ best signing was John Simpson, who has been one of the league’s top left guards this year. At two years and just $12 million, Douglas deserves major props for that one; it’s one of his all-time best moves. Connor McGovern, a rare Douglas free agent who played out his entire contract, was another good pickup. He gave the Jets three years at center. However, even McGovern was inconsistent, ultimately settling in as just an average center.

We can go up and down the list with good and bad moves, but nothing was more significant than Douglas’ handling of the offensive line in 2023. Knowing they were bringing in a 39-year-old quarterback and had one of the league’s worst offensive lines in 2022, Douglas did almost nothing to improve the offensive line in 2023; his lone outside addition of substance was Tippmann in the second round. Lo and behold, Rodgers got injured on the first series, and the Jets had one of the league’s worst offensive lines once again. It was blatantly obvious entering 2023 that the Jets needed to make the OL their top priority beyond QB, and Douglas did nothing, costing them a season.

Give Douglas some credit for leaving the Jets with Vera-Tucker, Tippmann, and Simpson going into 2025 – as well as Olu Fashanu, although his value remains TBD – but it took Douglas far too long and far too many assets to even scratch the surface of competency at this position.

Defensive tackle

Depth chart when hired: Leonard Williams, Henry Anderson, Steve McLendon, Quinnen Williams, Nathan Shepherd, Foley Fatukasi
Depth chart now: Quinnen Williams, Javon Kinlaw, Solomon Thomas, Leonard Taylor III, Bruce Hector (PS), Leki Fotu (IR)
Grade: D+

Quinnen Williams was the only constant for the Jets’ interior defensive line in Douglas’ tenure, and Williams was drafted by Maccagnan. Outside of Williams, the Jets’ interior defensive line has been a revolving door since Douglas took over.

Edge rusher

Depth chart when hired: Jordan Jenkins, Harvey Langi, Frankie Luvu, Tarell Basham, Bronson Kaufusi, Kyle Phillips, John Franklin-Myers (IR; acquired by Douglas), Brandon Copeland (Suspended)
Depth chart now: Jermaine Johnson (IR), Will McDonald, Haason Reddick, Micheal Clemons, Eric Watts, Braiden McGregor, Takk McKinley (PS)
Grade: B

The Jets had arguably the worst edge unit in the NFL when Douglas arrived. It may have even been the most barren unit on the Jets’ entire roster.

Fast forward to 2022, and the Jets’ edge unit became a strength behind John Franklin-Myers (who was acquired by Douglas off waivers in 2019), Jermaine Johnson, Bryce Huff, and Carl Lawson. It improved even further in 2023 with breakouts from Huff and Johnson, becoming arguably one of the best units in the league.

Douglas deserves a lot of credit for turning this unit from abominable to formidable in a matter of three offseasons. The Jets got some of the best edge production in the NFL from 2022-23. However, he also deserves flack for how quickly he allowed that success to crumble.

Douglas allowed Huff to walk to Philadelphia in 2024. While this was understandable due to the price tag Huff commanded relative to the playing time he received in New York, the real crime was allowing him to walk without receiving a compensatory pick or even trading him while they still could.

The Huff exodus, while a tough pill to swallow, was understandable. What was not even remotely understandable was Douglas’ decision to dump Franklin-Myers for a 2026 sixth-round pick. Franklin-Myers was a core piece of the Jets’ defense thanks to his inside-outside versatility and ability to both rush the passer and stop the run, yet they dumped him for pennies. Unsurprisingly, Franklin-Myers is currently playing a key role for one of the best defenses in the NFL.

The Haason Reddick fiasco is a story that needs no further explanation. Douglas turned to Reddick to replace Huff’s production but ended up getting seven games of nothing. Whether the post-trade situation was Douglas’ fault is irrelevant. He should have found a more reliable Plan B to replace a player who was as important to the team as Huff – or he should’ve just kept Huff. The Jets’ pass rush was far too important to be treated with the lack of care that Douglas did.

Even since Reddick has been on the field, he has not looked close to his former self. Outside of an 8-pressure outburst against Houston in Week 9 (where every Jets defender was eating against a terrible Texans line), Reddick has just four total pressures (with one sack) across his other three games. That includes no sacks and one hurry over the last two games.

Will McDonald is turning into a solid draft pick, although there are still plenty of questions for him to answer. His run defense remains a weakness, and while he has eight sacks, he can become a more consistent presence as a pass rusher beyond just the sacks.

Past Johnson and McDonald, the Jets lack depth at this position.

This is an interesting group to evaluate for Douglas. He did a great job forging a monumental turnaround, leading to a fantastic two-year peak, but he did not do a great job sustaining it.

Linebacker

Depth chart when hired: C.J. Mosley, Neville Hewitt, Blake Cashman, Avery Williamson (IR), Jamey Mosley (PS)
Depth chart now: Quincy Williams, Jamien Sherwood, C.J. Mosley, Chazz Surratt, Sam Eguavoen, Marcelino McCrary-Ball, Zaire Barnes (IR), Jackson Sirmon (PS), Jimmy Ciarlo (PS)
Grade: A

The Jets’ duo of Quincy Williams and Jamien Sherwood is one of the better pairings in the league, and both players were acquired by Douglas on minimal investments; Williams was a waiver wire pickup, while Sherwood was a fifth-round pick. Douglas also re-signed Williams on a steal of a contract at three years and $18 million.

Not much to criticize here.

Cornerback

Depth chart when hired: Trumaine Johnson, Darryl Roberts, Brian Poole, Nate Hairston, Arthur Maulet, Bennett Jackson, Kyron Brown (PS), Bless Austin (NFI), Jeremy Clark (IR)
Depth chart now: Sauce Gardner, D.J. Reed, Michael Carter II, Brandin Echols, Jarrick Bernard-Converse, Qwan’tez Stiggers, Tre Swilling (PS), Kendall Sheffield (PS)
Grade: A+

Although it has been a tumultuous year for Sauce Gardner, there is not much to talk about here. This is a masterclass by Douglas. He inherited a unit with three starters (Johnson, Roberts, Poole) who were soon out of the NFL, and he turned it into the league’s best cornerback unit from 2022-23.

Again, they have had a slight down year in 2024, but it’s still a great unit, and the Jets should be set for years to come with Gardner and Carter II. It remains to be seen what they will do with Reed, but he already gave the Jets three strong years on his three-year deal, making him Douglas’ best signing (and possibly best move) in his tenure.

If Reed leaves, the Jets have a nice pipeline of young players ready to compete for larger roles in the future. The depth has also been consistently strong whenever the Jets have needed someone to step up for an absent starter.

Safety

Depth chart when hired: Jamal Adams, Marcus Maye, Rontez Miles, Matthias Farley
Depth chart now: Chuck Clark, Tony Adams, Jalen Mills, Isaiah Oliver, Ashtyn Davis, Jarius Monroe (PS)
Grade: D+

Safety was the Jets’ best position when Douglas came in. With Jamal Adams at the height of his superpowers and Marcus Maye thriving at FS, I argued that they were the NFL’s best safety duo in 2019.

Maye gave the Jets two more seasons before he walked in 2022. Douglas traded Adams in 2020 for a great haul that amounted to Garrett Wilson and Alijah Vera-Tucker, so Adams continues to make a tremendous impact for the Jets to this day. That trade will be Douglas’ best long-term gift for the Jets beyond his exit.

After Adams and Maye skipped town, Douglas struggled to nail the safety position. His 2022 duo of Lamarcus Joyner and Jordan Whitehead was one of the league’s weaker pairings. Douglas could have cut Whitehead for ample savings going into 2023, but he elected to keep Whitehead as a starter once again, and Whitehead finished 2023 leading safeties in both missed tackles (20) and touchdowns allowed (7).

Douglas found a diamond in the rough with UDFA Tony Adams in 2022. Adams won the Jets’ starting free safety job going into 2023 and has been a respectable starter since then, although he is not a game-changer. Woody Johnson forced the Jets to bench him recently, although that was not warranted by Adams’ play.

Chuck Clark has been a decent pickup when healthy. Isaiah Oliver was a good depth signing. Ashtyn Davis may be slightly underwhelming for a third-round pick but he has made an impact as a role player at times.

I give Douglas credit for the Jamal Adams trade and Tony Adams pickup, but other than that, he is not leaving the Jets with anything else of substance at this position. His Joyner and Whitehead pickups also represented arguably the biggest holes in the Jets’ defense from 2022-23, holding the defense back from being even better.

Kicker/Punter/Long Snapper

Depth chart when hired: Kaare Vedvik (K; Acquired by Douglas), Lachlan Edwards (P), Thomas Hennessy (LS)
Depth chart now: Anders Carlson (K), Thomas Morstead (P), Thomas Hennessy (LS)
Grade: F

Douglas was immediately placed in a rough position at kicker. Chandler Catanzaro retired before the season opener, forcing the new GM to quickly find a replacement. He claimed Kaare Vedvik off waivers, which turned out to be the wrong pick, as Vedvik cost the Jets their season opener and never played in the regular season again. It was the first of many poor moves at kicker by Douglas.

Sam Ficken took over for the rest of 2019 and was brutal. The 2020 season saw more struggles from Ficken and Sergio Castillo. The Jets dealt with a bad 2021 season from Matt Ammendola until Eddy Pineiro closed the season strong. The Jets let Pineiro walk to Carolina after the year, and he has remained the Panthers’ kicker since then, establishing himself as one of the league’s most accurate kickers while the Jets have continued to struggle.

The Jets finally got a full season out of a kicker in 2022 with Greg Zuerlein, although he wasn’t anything special, making just 81.1% of his field goals. Zuerlein responded with a great 2023 season (92.1% on field goals). This led to Douglas giving him a two-year, $8.4 million contract extension, which turned out to be a mistake.

Zuerlein cost the Jets multiple games and was ultimately placed on IR after making 60% of his kicks through eight games. Hindsight is 20-20, but Zuerlein was a 37-year-old kicker coming off just one great season preceded by four straight seasons of sub-83% field goal percentages (including two seasons over that span with sub-92% extra point conversion rates). Was that really a body of work worth investing in with no competition?

Even in the preseason, Zuerlein missed two field goals of under 50 yards. Again, hindsight is 20-20, but the warning signs were there before he missed any kicks in the 2024 regular season.

Re-signing Zuerlein made sense, but the Jets should have had an insurance plan on their practice squad and been quicker to pull the trigger. Douglas and the Jets gave Zuerlein too many chances. How much of that is on Douglas (vs. the coaching staff) is unknown, but Zuerlein’s 2024 collapse ultimately falls on him. Douglas had five seasons to land a reliable long-term kicker, and his inability to do so forced them to settle for the erratic Zuerlein; this is his fourth career season with a sub-75% field goal percentage, so it’s nothing new for him to have an off year.

At the end of the day, Douglas oversaw the worst kicking in football over a six-year stretch of players who were all acquired by him. Since 2019, the Jets are last in field goal percentage (78.6%) and extra point percentage (89.6%).

At punter, Douglas inherited a lame duck in the struggling Lachlan Edwards. Douglas drafted a replacement with Braden Mann in 2020, but Mann struggled mightily for three seasons until the Jets turned to Thomas Morstead in 2023, who has been respectable over the past two seasons. However, Douglas leaves the Jets likely searching for another new punter in 2025.

Overall, the Jets’ average punting DVOA over the past five seasons was -2.5%, which, for perspective, usually ranks between 22nd and 24th in a given season.

Thomas Hennessy remains one of the most reliable long snappers in the league, although Douglas did not acquire him.

Douglas’ did a brutal job here. He oversaw six years of league-worst kicking and five years of bottom-10 punting, and will leave the Jets searching for answers at both positions.

Report card

QB: F
RB: B
WR: D
TE: D-
OL: C-
EDGE: B
LB: A
CB: A+
S: D+
K/P/LS: F