Way-to-Early 2025 Roster Preview

by Fred Schell of Freddy and The Jets

With six games left in the regular season, change is in the air at 1 Jets Drive as upper management is already beginning to reshuffle. With a GM yet to be selected, and the future coaching staff unknown; it’s hard to tell what’s next for this team in terms of personnel and scheme. This is a little preview of what the Jets roster COULD look like heading into 2025.

The ‘Aaron Rodgers Question’

We have seen the story of Rodger’s return for 2025 spoken about from every angle. Will he retire? Will he return for the Jets? Will he be cut and finish his career elsewhere? Nobody really seems certain about what to do. In this scenario, we are exploring a Jet’s roster with NO Aaron next year.

What are the cap ramifications of this? Well rather than having Rodgers under contract for $23.5 million in 2025 and having the dead money spread through 2029, this cut would incur a $49 million dead cap in 2025 and then be done. It’s essentially taking all your medicine right away to help the organization rebound much quicker.

We will also assume for this scenario that we no longer have Davante Adams. His high cap number makes him a more likely cut candidate than a trade candidate. Cutting him saves a lot of money, but still incurs about $8.5 million in dead cap. (rounding up a little) In total, the two incur about $58 million in dead cap of the total expected salary cap of about 245 million.

Our new 2025 QB room consists of starter Tyrod Taylor (under contract one more year, 6.8 million dollars) and red-shirt sophomore Jordan Travis. This gives the Jets an opportunity to see if Jordan Travis has the talent to keep on the roster as a future starter, bridge or backup.

Voids

The Jets have 6 players with contracts that’ll be voided in 2025. Tyron Smith, Wes Sweitzer, DJ Reed, Tyler Conklin, Javon Kinlaw, and Hasson Reddick. These moves will save us just shy of 13 million dollars on the salary cap. While Conklin and Reed leaving stings a little bit, the rest of these players are ones we can afford to lose.

Greg the Leg will be cut as well, saving an additional 2.5 million. So where does this leave us?

2025 roster and needs

Based on just who is still under contract for 2025, the Jets are sitting at about $38 million in cap space, roughly 8.5 of that is allocated for the draft, so we are left with a workable amount of about $30 million. Let’s look at the roster to see where we have acceptable starters and where we will need some reinforcements. This is of course to be taken with a grain of salt. A new coaching staff could change what we need around drastically. For the sake of discussion, we are saying that we are keeping the 4-3 defense.  

Offense

As we discussed, we are rolling with our current QB room this year, with Martinez available to return as QB3.

All our running backs are still under contract (Hall, Allen, Davis, Izzy) – we really don’t need all 4 of these guys tho, and Izzy seems to be the weakest link of the 4. Cutting him saves another $1m.

We still have a reasonable number of WRs under contract, but a BIG problem. (Wilson, Lazard, Gipson, Corley) Did you spot the issue yet? Out of our 4 WRs under contract, 3 of them are strictly slot WRs. With 2 STARTING outside WRs required, this won’t do. My recommendation on this would be to cut Lazard, the highest paid of these guys. We’ll need at least one outside receiver, but for sure more then one. This might be a room with dedicated draft and FA investment.

OL is in good shape. Olu takes over at LT, continuity across the middle, and then an open slot at RT that is taken (on paper) by Carter Warren. Max Mitchell also remains under contract along with our long snapper Hennesey.

Our TE room is where we are feeling the most pain on offense. We head into 2025 with only one TE on our roster, Ruckert.

Defense

Our defense is where the most changes are likely to be made, as we built a Saleh defense. For this exercise though, I am going to assume we stick with a 4-3.

Our DB room is a disaster. Starting off, we lose DJ Reed, a top 10 level corner since we signed him. We have a couple of guys that COULD step up, JBC and Stiggers, but frankly they are ‘unproven’ at best. MC2 is thankfully under contract in the slot for a few tears. WE HAVE NO SAFTEY UNDER CONTRACT

Our LB unit isn’t in much better shape. CJ Mosely is still here but under the last year of his contract. It’s hard to tell what he will look like this season. This year he looked slow and almost like a liability before Sherwood took over for our Mike. Did father time come for Mosely or was he more hurt then he let on? My intuition says the former. We are losing Sherwood this year but retaining Quincy. We REALLY need some reinforcements here as well.

Our defensive line might be in comparatively the best shape of the defense, though more help is still needed. With Q in the middle and rising star LT3 in the middle, I am comfortable with our starting two. Beyond them, however we have exactly 0 depth. At the EDGE position, we will have JJ (hopefully) and WMD as our starting Edges, with Clemons, McGregor and Watts as backups. This is certainly the thinnest we’ve been on the defensive line in a couple of years.

ST

While we are retaining Morestead for next season, who has been an acceptable punter, we seem to be (once again) stuck without a long-term kicker. The Jets will need to find one before next season begins.

Needs, Wants, & Budget

With this current roster construction, we have about $45 million dollars in cap space with about $40 million of functional cap after the draft. How can the Jets best utilize the money? I graded each room on the roster A-F in terms of how it looks on paper. This should help us maximize the limited remaining capital.

QB-C   -- we are rolling with Taylor and Travis for better or worse

RB-A – headlined by Breece and Braelon Allen, the Jets have a top 7 RB room

WR-D -- Wilson is a star, but beyond that we are in trouble, need AT LEAST a starting Z

TE-F – only Ruckert rostered, need at least a blocking TE

OL-B – our starting offensive line is decent. A starting RT would be best, but some depth and letting Warren try out RT would be acceptable for this year tho

DB-C – The loss of DJ hurts a lot. Either Stiggers or JBC could get the starting nod, but they’re unproven at best. We need several safeties too.

LB-D – If CJ is back and looks okay, this room looks a bit better. With it being more expensive to cut than to leave Mosely, we keep him and pray.

DL-C – Assuming JJ comes back and is back to 100%, which is FAR from a guarantee, we have a nice starting line. Our depth on the outside is lackluster but our interior depth just doesn’t exist.

ST-C – Morestead stays, kickers are easy.

TE, WR, S, K, and LB are our biggest team needs.

Potential Signings/Re-Signings

There are a few players that Jet fans (myself included) already have their eyes on. Here are a few guys the Jets could use, and about how much they would cost.

Jamien Sherwood – Based on his performance this season, Sherwood is going to have some teams trying to sign him. We will likely have to pay him a sizably larger chunk than he made last year. Based on the other FA LBSs available, he will likely sign between 6-9 million dollars. Sherwood appears to be a rising star. The Jets would do well to sign him now before his price tag skyrockets.

Morgan Moses – Despite playing hurt, Moses has been a fringe top 50 tackle. He is also set to make the most money out of any free agent right tackle. Likely to make between 10-12 million per year. Moses is a great leader in the locker room and a solid lineman, but this seems like too much money given the OL’s current status.

Ashytyn Davis/Chuck Clark/Tony Adams – I am not too worried about the safety position. Safety is only expensive at the top, and there are a lot of quality safeties available. Expect 5-6 million allocated to this room for starters.

WRs- with Top WRs earning HUGE dollars, the Jets can only get some depth at the position at best in FA. Perhaps a KJ Osborne type, a WR 3 with some jump could sign for a little under 5 million.

The average salary for an NFL kicker is around 4 million.

Tyler Conklin (TE in general) – I think the best bet for the Jets would be let Ruckert try his role as TE-1 for the year and sign a blocking TE for depth. My recommendation would be Hunter Long out of the LAR. He is the #9 graded run-blocking TE and would be available for 2-3 million.

Interior DL – we need a run stuffer, as LT3 and Quinnen are excellent pass rushers. There are several guys on the market in FA. Guys like Sebastion Joeseph-Day and Greg Gaines can get 3-4 million.

My signings

-Sign Day or Gaines at IDL for $4 million.

-Resign Sherwood for a couple more years, probly have to pay him about $8m.

-Sign a $4m kicker.

-Sign KJ Osbourne or comparable WR for $5m.

-Rebuild safety room, allocate $10m for starters and some depth. I REALLY like what Jalen -Mills has been doing. Would certainly like to resign him.

-TE I would sign Hunter Long for $3 million.

Remaining functional cap after moves: $10m.

Where Does That Leave the 2025 NYJ?

This breakdown would theoretically fill up all the starting roles in the roster and leave 10m for depth on the offensive line and defensive line. With all the starting spots filled, it allows the Jets to go in whichever direction they would like in the draft. BPA. I would likely still target a high-end WR this year to go opposite Garrett.

Here is the new roster as of right now: (bold indicates starter)

QB: Taylor, Travis, Martinez     - C

RB: Hall, Allen, Davis    - A

WR: Wilson, Osbourne, Corley, Gipson, Riley     - C

TE: Ruckert, Long    - C

OL: Fashanu, Simpson, Tippmann, AVT, Warren, Mitchell, Hennesey   - B

K: TBD

P: Morestead   

LS: Hennesey (see OL)

DT: Williams, LT3, Day/Gaines   - B

EDGE: JJ, WMD, Clemons, McGregor, Watts   - C

LB: Sherwood, Quincy, Mosely, Barnes   - B

DB: Sauce, MC2, Stiggers, JBC, Mills, Clark, depth S   - B