NY Jets are reportedly shopping TE Chris Herndon ahead of the trade deadline

The NY Jets are reportedly shopping tight end Chris Herndon ahead of the trade deadline.

The NY Jets have had their fair share of disappointments in the 2020 season, but perhaps no player has been a bigger disappointment than tight end Chris Herndon.

And with the trade deadline now hours away, the Jets are reportedly shopping their struggling tight end.

As reported by Manish Mehta of the NY Daily News, the Jets are looking to unload the former Miami standout before today’s 4 p.m. ET deadline.

Following a promising rookie campaign in 2018, the hope was that Herndon could break out and emerge as one of the NFL’s best tight ends in 2019. Unfortunately, he was never really given that opportunity.

A four-game suspension derailed the start of his season and two subsequent injuries limited his on-field playing time to just one quarter of football. After shining in his rookie season, Herndon’s 2019 was essentially rendered null and void.

Still, the hope was that he could return healthy in 2020 and pick up where he left off two years ago. And if you believed the hype from training camp, the Jets thought that they had a special talent on their hands in the young Herndon.

The former fourth-round pick was dubbed “a unicorn” and looked primed to become a focal point of the Jets’ offense. For that reason, it’s almost unbelievable to see just how much he’s struggled this season.

Chris Herndon has completely fallen flat with the NY Jets in 2020.

Herndon has been relegated to be a part-time player after a disastrous start to the season coupled with drops and fumbles. Since Week 2, Herndon has hauled in just eight catches for 64 yards.

In his last three games, Herndon has caught just one pass — a tight end screen this past week on which he fumbled and turned the ball over. It’s been that kind of season for Herndon.

His 46.6 Pro Football Focus grade ranks 66th out of only 68 qualifiers and the metrics show that he’s been equally as ineffective as a blocker as he has been as a receiver. Quite literally, Herndon has done nothing right in 2020.

For that reason, it’s far from surprising to see the Jets looking to trade him. What will be surprising would be for other teams to be very interested.

Despite the promise he showed two years ago, the NFL is very much a “what-have-you-done-for-me-lately” league. And Herndon hasn’t done anything positive of note in a couple of years.

Once viewed as a building block of the offense, Herndon finds himself on the trade block this November. And not a single person should be surprised by this.