The Jets didn’t bring Demario Davis back to Florham Park for the nostalgia. They brought him back because, at 37, he’s still playing like one of the league’s best linebackers.
That matters for a defense that needs stability in the middle, and it matters even more because Davis isn’t arriving as a sentimental add-on. He’s coming off a 2025 season that showed plenty left in the tank: an 81.4 Pro Football Focus overall grade, fifth among 88 qualified linebackers.
His 88.9 run-defense grade ranked seventh, his 70.3 coverage grade was 14th, and he finished with 55 run stops, seventh-most at the position. In coverage, he allowed just 8.1 yards per reception, ninth-best among qualified linebackers.
This is not a case of the numbers flattering the player. Davis still looks the part on tape, which is why the Jets’ reunion feels like a real football move instead of a feel-good headline.
His path back here has been unusual even by NFL standards. Davis entered the league as a third-round pick from Arkansas State in 2012 and spent his first four seasons with the Jets before leaving for the Cleveland Browns in free agency.
A year later, New York traded former first-round pick Calvin Pryor to Cleveland to bring him back for a second stint. That 2017 season became a turning point, and after it he moved on to New Orleans, where he spent eight seasons and became one of the defining linebackers of his era.
The production in New Orleans speaks for itself: five All-Pro selections and multiple Pro Bowl appearances. Even now, the résumé keeps growing because the play is still there.
For the Jets, the fit goes beyond individual excellence. Davis should let Jamien Sherwood move back into a more natural WILL linebacker role after handling MIKE duties last season. Sherwood is at his best when he can play fast and attack downhill, not when he’s consistently taking on blocks and managing the pre-snap traffic in the middle.
Davis gives New York a veteran signal-caller in the heart of the defense, and he brings something just as valuable off the field. He has been nominated for the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award three times, is widely respected as a leader, and has the kind of locker-room presence teams chase when they’re trying to build something solid.
Durability is part of the package, too. Over 14 NFL seasons, Davis has played in 227 of a possible 229 regular-season games. At a position this punishing, that kind of availability is almost absurd.
There’s also familiarity here. Davis knows Aaron Glenn from their time together in New Orleans, and that connection should help him serve as a bridge between the coaching staff and a young roster. In a defense that needed help in the middle, he checks every box.
The Jets aren’t asking him to turn back the clock. They’re asking him to keep doing what he’s been doing.
If Davis plays at the level he showed last season, steadies the defense, helps Sherwood get back to his 2024 form, and gives Glenn the leadership he’s counting on, this could end up looking like one of the best values of the offseason. His career has come full circle, and if this is where it ends, he’ll have earned that finish.
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