The Jets have reached a point where almost every evaluation is really a long-term question in disguise, and Will McDonald sits right in the middle of that conversation.
At 2-5, New York’s playoff chances are slipping away fast, so the attention is shifting toward which players can actually be part of the core going forward. McDonald, the 2023 first-round pick, is one of the names that keeps surfacing because his role and his value both feel unsettled.
The Jets exercised McDonald’s fifth-year option in May, so he remains under team control beyond this season. But that doesn’t mean they have to commit to him as part of their future, and it certainly doesn’t mean a long-term extension is waiting around the corner. A trade before the deadline is at least on the table.
That conversation exists because McDonald’s usage has changed. His snap rate has dropped from 66% to 46% this season, which is a pretty clear sign the Jets do not see him as an every-down edge defender. The run defense issues have been there, and under Aaron Glenn, the fit has not looked clean.
The pass rush hasn’t carried him the way it once did, either. Through seven games, McDonald has only two sacks and 14 pressures, which places him 45th among 133 qualifiers in sacks and 55th in pressures.
A lot of that output came in Week 1. Since then, over the last six games, he has one sack and nine pressures.
That’s the heart of the problem. If McDonald isn’t consistently winning as a pass rusher, his value drops sharply. The rest of his game has not looked strong enough to make up for it, and that leaves the Jets with a player whose best trait has become harder to trust on a weekly basis.
As Jet X’s Robby Sabo recently argued, players with this kind of specialized profile can be difficult to fit into a system. McDonald’s game is heavily tilted toward pass rushing, and when that’s not showing up, he doesn’t give the defense much else.
So what happens now? The Jets can test the market before the Nov. 10 trade deadline, which lands on the Tuesday after Week 9. They still have two games left before then, against Las Vegas and at Kansas City, and if McDonald pops over that stretch, New York could try to sell high.
The return, though, may not be dramatic. Even if his production spikes, it’s hard to picture a Day 2 pick coming back.
A fourth-round type of return sounds more realistic, maybe with a young player attached. A Day 3 pick and a young edge player would be the kind of package that feels possible.
If the deadline doesn’t bring enough value, the Jets could also wait. They could let McDonald play out the rest of the season, hope he boosts his stock over the final 10 games, and revisit the situation in the offseason.
There’s still the possibility of simply keeping him through the fifth-year option and seeing whether he finally strings together the kind of pass-rushing consistency he has not shown over the last two seasons. But that route comes with its own questions. McDonald is already 27, he’s three-and-a-half seasons into his NFL career, and aside from the jump from his rookie year to his second season, there hasn’t been much in the way of obvious growth.
If the Jets move on from McDonald, the edge room for next season could start looking pretty thin. David Bailey, the No. 2 overall rookie, and Kingsley Enagbare appear to be the only two edge rushers on the current roster the team would clearly want to lean on next year.
Enagbare is set to be a free agent, but he has played well enough that the Jets will likely want him back. He has been their most valuable piece in that room this season.
Joseph Ossai is also under contract, but an injury-filled season has made him hard to judge. Releasing him this offseason would bring a $17.2 million dead money charge, so he would likely remain with the team.
Eventually, the Jets have to make the call on McDonald. Whether that happens before the deadline or later on, they need to decide what he is worth and what role, if any, he should have in their future.
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Jets Just Sent A Clear Message In The Will McDonald Debate
Will McDonald IV has become one of the more interesting names on the Jets roster as the season has worn on, and not just because of his play. According to Sports Illustrateds Albert Breer, there has been significant trade interest in the edge rusher, a sign that other teams still see value in a player whose production has not matched the expectation around him this year.
For the Jets, though, the message has been clear. They have not moved him, and with his fifth-year option already exercised, McDonald remains under team control through 2027. Even with the numbers not jumping off the page, New York appears intent on riding out the rest of the season with him in the mix rather than turning a draft pick into a short-term fix. [Read more 🡒]