Jelani Woods is turning a Jets training camp opportunity into something bigger than a roster battle. For a player who has already lost consecutive seasons to injury, every snap carries weight, and Woods knows it.
“I will never complain about being on the field,” Woods said on Monday. “Every day you get a new opportunity to take a next step forward to getting better, I feel like I’m doing that, and I want to keep it up.”
That mindset has helped Woods stand out all offseason, and it showed again last Friday night when he caught a 13-yard touchdown against the Steelers. The production matters, sure, but Woods has become a favorite around the team for reasons that go beyond numbers.
The Jets signed the third-round tight end last fall, and that move stood out even more because it came before they hired Frank Reich, who had coached Woods in Indianapolis. At that point, the idea of Woods getting back on the field at all was the story. The Jets saw enough to bring him in, and that alone made his return one of the few bright spots in another rough season.
Woods’ path has been anything but ordinary. He graduated from Oklahoma State with a management degree and also took graduate classes at Virginia.
After the injuries, nobody would have blamed him for stepping away from football altogether. Instead, he kept going.
Now the challenge is turning this summer momentum into something that survives cutdowns. Woods is not being projected as a star, and nobody is talking about him like he’s about to become the next Travis Kelce, with or without a global pop star in a personal suite. If Kenyon Sadiq is healthy, Woods would be at best the No. 3 tight end in Week 1.
Still, he has done everything asked of him this offseason. That matters because his road back to consistent offensive snaps is a tough one, and he knows it. If he stays healthy and keeps making the most of the chances he gets while Sadiq is out, Woods could put himself back on NFL teams’ radars.
Given his age and injury history, the most realistic outcomes may be a practice squad spot or finishing as the last tight end on the roster. Either way, he has already become one of the Jets’ biggest summer winners.
As of Monday afternoon, Glenn had not said how much the starters would play against the Giants. Woods should still be part of the offensive plan, though ideally for him, he’ll be getting more work with Cade Klubnik than Bailey Zappe.
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