Even with No. 1 draft slot, Jets fans better not use that ‘T’ word

With the New York Jets sitting at an all too familiar 0-3, some fans have already begun glancing at the draft order.

Those who elect to take such a daring plunge would be rewarded with an alluring image: The Jets in possession of the first overall draft pick.

If the draft were held today, this is how the top of the board would look:

1. New York Jets (0-3, .451 SOS)
2. New Orleans Saints (0-3, .471 SOS)
3. Miami Dolphins (0-3, .529 SOS)
4. Tennessee Titans (0-3, .529 SOS)
5. New York Giants (0-3, .569 SOS)
6. Houston Texans (0-3, .627 SOS)

The Jets are one of six 0-3 teams, and since they have the weakest strength-of-schedule (SOS) of the bunch, they are currently in the driver’s seat for the No. 1 overall pick.

It is slightly misleading, though, as the SOS tiebreaker is determined by weighing all 17 games on a team’s schedule. While the Jets have the weakest overall schedule of the bunch, they have actually played the toughest schedule so far.

Among the games they have played through Week 3, the Jets’ SOS is a whopping .889, the toughest among the six winless teams. Their remaining SOS is .357, tied with New England for the weakest of any NFL team.

This valuable context suggests that the Jets are not the actual favorites for the No. 1 pick, even though they are technically the current owners of it. They are on track for a better finish than the other winless teams, who have each faced an easier schedule thus far and will face a tougher schedule over the next 14 games.

With that being said, there is no doubt that many frustrated Jets fans will look at their team in the No. 1 draft slot and blurt out the forsaken “T” word: Tank.

To those Jets fans, I urge you to heed the words of a famous McDonald’s spokesman: “Stop it. Get some help.”

Tanking is not the answer for Jets

I know it feels like a completely different era in world history by now. But did we all forget what happened just five years ago?

It is safe to assume that every current Jets fan was following the team during the waking nightmare known as 2020. I doubt any new fans hopped along for the ride over the last four hapless seasons, so, if you’re reading this and at least 10 years old, you know what happened that year.

I’ll refresh your memory regardless.

After many years of the Jets being bad, but not bad enough to land the first overall pick (and the savior of their franchise), the Jets finally had a squad built for the Tankathon throne. Led by head coach Adam Gase, the 2020 Jets were a disasterpiece of incompetence.

The roster was in ruins after years of poor drafts from Mike Maccagnan. The offensive coordinator was Dowell Loggains, who has yet to return to the NFL since his stint in New York. At quarterback, Sam Darnold’s confidence was in the dumpster after the Jets mutilated his development.

Through three games, the Jets were not only 0-3, but they were outscored 94-37. They never held a single lead and were down double-digits at halftime in every game.

Jets fans knew it only three games into the season: If there was ever a team born to tank, this was it.

Many fans embraced the tank as early as Week 4, and from there, the Jets were off to the races. For the first time in years, the Jets started making their fans happy on a weekly basis.

Until they didn’t.

With just two measly wins, the Jets played themselves out of the top overall pick, ceding it to the Jacksonville Jaguars in one of the most thrilling tank-offs the sports world has ever seen.

When New York blew the first pick with its shocking Week 15 win over the Rams, Jets fans were devastated. But that devastation was due to more than just the number in front of the Jets’ logo on Tankathon.

The win felt crippling because of one man: Trevor Lawrence.

If it were almost any other year, blowing the first overall pick might not have felt so crushing. In this particular year, though, there was a generational prospect on the line. Jets fans had convinced themselves that, for the measly price of just one totally inept season, Lawrence would save the franchise.

Lawrence’s spotless reputation as a prospect is the sole reason why Jets fans felt so assured that losing every game was the team’s best-case scenario. They believed getting Lawrence was worth more than the success of the 53 players on the current roster.

And if Lawrence turned out to be the superhero he was billed as, maybe they would have been right.

Fast forward five years, though, and Lawrence is… just a guy.

Lawrence has led the Jaguars to one playoff win and a 24-39 record. He has thrown 73 touchdowns to 50 interceptions.

Things aren’t exactly trending up, either. Three games into 2025, his fifth NFL season, Lawrence’s 70.3 passer rating ranks third-worst among qualifiers, beating only Jake Browning and Joe Flacco.

In his fourth season, Lawrence ranked 28th out of 36 qualified quarterbacks in passer rating (85.2) while winning two of his 10 starts. Twenty-two spots above Lawrence was the man Jets fans yearned for him to replace: Sam Darnold, who placed sixth in passer rating (102.5) while winning 14 games.

Every NFL fan should understand it by now: One man cannot save a franchise.

Lawrence’s underwhelming career is the exclamation point in a growing list of examples that no prospect can ever be labeled “generational,” “can’t miss,” or whatever other superlatives that overconfident draft pundits slap on them.

In the last 20 years, these eight No. 1 picks have combined for two playoff wins and zero championship game appearances:

• Caleb Williams (2024)
• Bryce Young (2023)
• Trevor Lawrence (2021)
• Kyler Murray (2019)
• Baker Mayfield (2018)
• Jameis Winston (2015)
• Sam Bradford (2010)
• JaMarcus Russell (2007)

The jury is still out on Young and Williams, but things aren’t looking too hot. Even if either one pans out, it is already obvious that neither player is a “savior” who can rescue their franchises on their own. Both will need exceptional support from their coaching staff and surrounding roster to be successful – just like any other quarterback you can get later in the draft.

There are some exceptions who have lived up to their franchise-shifting potential in the No. 1 slot, such as Cam Newton, Andrew Luck, and Joe Burrow – although injuries have limited the ceilings of all three players, further displaying the foolishness of counting on one man to save your organization.

Despite a handful of exceptions, the chances of getting a savior-caliber player at No. 1 are not far enough above the rest of the draft to be worth the price of having a terrible overall team to land that pick.

After all, many of the league’s most dominant quarterbacks were not even chosen in the top five. The last seven MVPs have been won by Josh Allen (7th overall pick), Lamar Jackson (32nd), Patrick Mahomes (10th), and Aaron Rodgers (24th).

Justin Herbert has inserted himself into the top three of this year’s MVP odds as a former sixth overall pick. Jalen Hurts just won Super Bowl MVP out of the second round.

To suggest that New York must lose games to land its franchise quarterback is to ignore NFL history.

Root for the Jets to win games

No NFL team will ever deliberately attempt to tank, so this discussion is pointless from a strategic perspective.

Debates about tanking are centered around the fans’ point of view. Each fan has a different take on whether tanking is an optimal strategy for pursuing a championship, even if no team will ever purposefully do it.

Fans want to root for whatever outcome they think offers the quickest path to a world championship. That is the nucleus of the tanking debate.

What fans choose to root for has no effect on the outcome of games. Still, it is fascinating to unpack the two sides of the equation.

The dilemma can be boiled down to the following question:

As a fan of a team with no chance of competing for the current season’s Super Bowl, which outcome is preferable to root for in pursuit of winning a future Super Bowl: A) Winning as many games as possible, or B) Losing as many games as possible to maximize draft position?

Considering the relatively poor hit rate of quarterbacks drafted first overall, it is quite obvious that option B is preferable.

Look at it from the perspective of this year’s Jets. Let’s say they fulfill the wishes of the pro-tank fan in your group chat: They finish 2-15, get the first overall pick, and draft South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers.

Is that really the best path to a future championship?

Congratulations: The Jets have another quarterback drafted in the top three, their third in a span of nine drafts.

But how on Earth is the kid going to save a team that needed to lose 15 games to get him?

The Jets have already been through this. They thrust Sam Darnold into the fire to save a roster that was specifically designed to tank for him (even though they overachieved and forced Mike Maccagnan to trade up for him). Shockingly, the 21-year-old could not exorcise the Jets’ demons on his own.

Years later, once he had time to develop and was placed within a healthy environment, Darnold showed what kind of quarterback he could be.

Zach Wilson couldn’t do it, either. Granted, Wilson probably just isn’t cut out for the NFL, but it again goes to show how little we know about a prospect coming into the league, regardless of how touted they must be to get drafted second overall.

Even if Wilson was competent, his development would have been hamstrung by an offensive line that consistently ranked among the league’s worst during his time in New York. Joe Douglas did such a poor job building the Jets’ offensive infrastructure that even Aaron Rodgers (albeit a decrepit one who shared blame in the struggles) could not make the Jets’ offense perform at a top-20 level.

The Jets are not going anywhere until they start winning games. Period.

This franchise has already failed many times at going backward to go forward. If any fan wants to see them try it again, that’s their prerogative, but I urge them to heed the warnings of NFL history.

Pro-tank fans: As apathetic as you may be about rooting for the Jets to win games when they are not in the mix for a championship, it is still a preferable outcome to the team displaying total incompetence just for the sake of acquiring a completely unknown quarterback prospect who is extremely unlikely to be capable of saving a No. 1 pick-caliber franchise on his own.

Whether they make the playoffs in 2025 or not, every win collected by Aaron Glenn’s Jets moves them one step closer to eventually competing for a championship. While those wins may not move the needle for New York’s Super Bowl LX odds, there are countless benefits with each victory that improve the team’s long-term Super Bowl odds.

Winning means the team has players who are performing well and can be a part of the long-term solution. Winning means that New York’s young roster (the second-youngest in the NFL) and young coaching staff are learning how to, well… win. It’s an acquired skill that can only be mastered through repeated success; playing well in close losses isn’t enough.

New York’s 2025 season is about learning whether Aaron Glenn and Darren Mougey are the right men to build a culture that can anchor sustainable competitiveness for years to come. Every win is another building block in the foundation of that culture.

Losing games to get a higher draft pick is not worth the price of New York’s new leaders showing that they might not be cut out for their jobs. The higher the Jets pick, the less likely Glenn and Mougey are the right guys, meaning the more likely it is that New York wastes whatever prospect their pessimistic fans wanted so desperately to tank for.

No quarterback prospect is coming into New York and doing a darn thing until the Jets have the right infrastructure around the position – regardless of where they get drafted or how they are acquired. The franchise has been taught this lesson countless times.

As the Jets stockpile victories, their new regime will improve its legitimacy as a landing spot that can properly develop a young quarterback. From there, the Jets can get a quarterback from anywhere and turn him into a franchise player, whether they take him later in the first round, go all-in to trade up for him, or acquire a veteran through free agency or a trade.

Back in 2018, trading up for Darnold crushed the Jets’ future because they already had a poor infrastructure to support him before making the trade. So, when they traded three second-round picks to secure Darnold, they threw away three building blocks that were needed to create a sufficient supporting cast around their new centerpiece. It left Darnold to fight for his life with a barren roster.

The current Jets have an opportunity to avoid that scenario. If things pan out as hoped, Mougey can put himself in a spot where he can afford to trade up for a quarterback and still have a quality supporting cast around him.

New York has a quality WR1 in Garrett Wilson, a promising second-round tight end in Mason Taylor, and many assets invested in a talented offensive line. If the Jets win plenty of games in 2025, it probably means their offensive infrastructure has proven it is strong enough to support a young quarterback, even if the Jets have to give up some draft picks to trade up for him as a byproduct of winning their way down the board.

To boot, the Jets have a first-year offensive coordinator in Tanner Engstrand who has shown promising signs over the first three games. It is vital for the franchise to see progress from Engstrand. If the Jets lose their way to a top pick, there is a good chance that it means Engstrand is not all that great of a guy to pair with your prized young quarterback.

But if the Jets get hot and win some games, it likely means Engstrand is building a strong system that a young quarterback can easily step into.

There is an irony to tanking that spits in the face of its core logic. You’re rooting for your favorite team to acquire a certain player because you think he’d make the team better, but the path to acquiring him is to root for that same team to get worse and worse, even though the quality of the team is the primary variable that determines how effective said player will be.

No matter how you slice it, winning games is the Jets’ only path back to relevancy.