Aaron Glenn’s second season with the New York Jets is shaping up as a true proving ground, and the pressure is already baked into the calendar.
The Jets are coming off a 3-14 season in Glenn’s first year, and there’s no way around how rough that looked. New York became the first team in NFL history not to record a defensive interception and lose five straight games by 23 or more points within a single season in 2025. That’s the kind of year that leaves a franchise searching for a reset, not celebrating progress.
Now Glenn and the Jets move into Year 2 with a schedule that offers no easy path. Their 2026 slate includes the Tennessee Titans, Green Bay Packers, Detroit Lions, Chicago Bears, Cleveland Browns, New England Patriots, Miami Dolphins, Las Vegas Raiders, Kansas City Chiefs, Buffalo Bills, Los Angeles Chargers, Denver Broncos, Arizona Cardinals and Minnesota Vikings.
The good news for New York is that the roster has been reshaped. The Jets had a strong draft and offseason transaction cycle, and they’re not expected to be the league’s punchline again. In the 2026 draft, they added David Bailey, Kenyon Sadiq, Omar Cooper Jr., D'Angelo Ponds, Darrell Jackson Jr., Cade Klubnik, Anez Cooper and VJ Payne.
They also made some notable moves before the draft, bringing in Geno Smith from the Raiders, Minkah Fitzpatrick from the Dolphins and T'Vondre Sweat from the Titans. In free agency, the Jets signed Demario Davis and Tim Patrick.
That doesn’t automatically turn this into a playoff team, though. As Knox wrote, "The Jets don't necessarily need a playoff berth to call the season a success, but they do need to see meaningful progress, a team that plays disciplined football, develops its young talent, and gives fans reason to believe sustainable success is finally taking shape,"
Still, the expectations around 2026 are complicated. While the Jets should be better than the disaster they were a year ago, they also may be better off if the record stays ugly enough to keep them in position for the 2027 draft and a shot at Arch Manning or Dante Moore.
A lot of that conversation circles back to Smith. He enters next season with 22,168 passing yards, 124 passing touchdowns and 89 career interceptions.
His starting record is 42-56-0, and he threw 17 interceptions last season. The odds of him turning back the clock are very low.
So the question isn’t just whether the Jets can win more games. It’s whether Glenn’s team can finally look like a real football operation after a year that left no doubt how far they had to climb.
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Jets Backup QB Battle Just Became A High-Stakes Two-Man Race
The Jets search for a reliable backup quarterback has settled into a tighter, more familiar kind of competition, with veteran Bailey Zappe and rookie Cade Klubnik now the names to watch for the QB2 job. New York had explored other options along the way, but the market thinned out and left the team weighing Zappes NFL experience against the upside Klubnik flashed before his spring work was slowed.
Klubnik still has the kind of arm talent and ceiling that can make a staff pause, but his availability was not complete during OTAs and minicamp because of a minor back injury. Zappe, meanwhile, offers the steadier profile of a player who has already been through the league grind, and that contrast is what makes this battle worth following as the Jets sort out who would be next in line if the position is needed. [Read more 🡒]
Geno Smith Just Entered A Defining Chapter Raiders Fans Know Well
The Jets are turning to a familiar face at quarterback, acquiring Geno Smith from the Raiders for the 2026 season and handing the 35-year-old the chance to lead the offense again. Smiths path has been anything but linear since his early years in New York, and his strong run with Seattle helped restore his standing around the league before his move to Las Vegas.
Now he arrives back in a place that knows his story well, but under very different circumstances. After a difficult 2025 season with the Raiders, Smith enters 2026 with plenty at stake, and the Jets are betting he can steady the position and show he still belongs as a starter in the NFL. [Read more 🡒]
Jets Fans Are Already Asking How Real David Bailey Can Be
The Jets used the No. 2 overall pick in the 2026 NFL draft on Texas Tech defensive end David Bailey, a move that immediately put him at the center of their defensive makeover. He is expected to step in opposite Will McDonald IV and give New York a much-needed edge presence, with the front office also adding Joseph Ossai and Kingsley Enagbare in free agency to deepen a pass rush that suddenly looks far more dangerous than it did a year ago.
Baileys college production is part of why the excitement has come so quickly, and the early conversation around him is less about whether he can help than how fast he can become a difference-maker. For the Jets, a strong rookie season would already change the tone around the defense, but the bigger question is whether Baileys ceiling is high enough to make New Yorks investment look even smarter before the season is over. [Read more 🡒]