Why aren’t more Jets fans talking about David Onyemata?
New York spent the offseason reshaping its defensive line, and the loudest buzz naturally landed on names like David Bailey and T’Vondre Sweat. But the most quietly important addition might be the veteran who signed a one-year, $10.5 million deal and looks lined up to start in Week 1: David Onyemata.
At 33, with his 34th birthday coming in November, Onyemata is heading into his ninth NFL season carrying more than 150 games of experience and the kind of steady production that tends to get overlooked until it’s gone. He’s been around the league long enough to build a résumé, but not so flashy that he’s ever become a headline magnet. That’s exactly why his arrival in Florham Park has slipped under the radar.
The Jets see him as a fit in their expected new 3-4 scheme, where he projects as one of the starting base defensive ends. And he’s not coming in as a part-time piece.
Onyemata is expected to play somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 to 60 percent of the defensive snaps, a workload that could end up higher than guys like David Bailey and especially Will McDonald. In other words, he’s going to be on the field a lot more than plenty of people seem to realize.
The reason the Jets are so interested is simple: Onyemata still plays good football.
Last season with Atlanta, he started all 17 games and posted a 78.2 Pro Football Focus grade, which ranked eighth among 127 qualified interior defensive linemen. His run defense stood out most.
Onyemata earned a 74.2 run-defense grade, good for seventh at his position, and tied for 15th with 25 run stops. He also had a 4.8 percent missed tackle rate, which matters for a Jets defense that has had real trouble finishing plays in recent years.
That reputation isn’t just built on numbers. Earlier this offseason, Jets linebacker Demario Davis said Onyemata was one of the five best run defenders he’s ever played alongside. They were teammates in New Orleans, and the production backs up the praise.
Onyemata brings more than run-stopping, too. He’s never been the kind of interior force people compare to Chris Jones or Aaron Donald, but he has been remarkably steady as a pass rusher over the years.
He enters 2026 with 34 career sacks and 281 career pressures, and he finished above average in pass-rush win rate last season. The Jets don’t need him to be the centerpiece of the pass rush.
They need him to do what he’s done for nearly a decade: line up, hold up, and keep the defense moving.
There’s also a personal connection here that clearly matters. After the Falcons’ 27-24 loss to the Jets last season, Onyemata sought out Aaron Glenn and thanked him for conversations they had shared years earlier, telling him they had changed his life. The moment was captured by NFL Films, and it stood out as a genuine exchange between two people who clearly had a deep respect for each other.
At the time, Glenn was the Saints’ defensive backs coach, so he wasn’t even Onyemata’s position coach. That gives you a sense of the kind of impact Glenn had on him.
Now the two are reunited in Florham Park, and that relationship likely played a part in bringing Onyemata to New York. The Jets are counting on him to be more than just a reliable starter. They want him to be a stabilizing veteran in the room and a guide for younger linemen like Jowon Briggs, T’Vondre Sweat, and Darrell Jackson Jr.
If Onyemata gives them another season of dependable, above-average play while helping steady the line, this could end up looking like one of the smarter value signings of the offseason.
He’s spent his career outperforming the attention he gets. Nothing about this move suggests that’s about to change.
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