Jets' shocking teardown could be the start of something special for the defense

The New York Jets' fire sale shocked the world as the team traded two of the few stars it possessed, Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams, acquiring a mountain of draft capital (and a couple of intriguing young players) in the process.

Going into the deadline, these two defensive stars were thought of as cornerstones. The interest from rival teams in Quinnen Williams was natural, though the Jets' posturing in the deadline lead-up made it seem as if he was part of the future. On the Gardner front, there were crickets.

Yet here we are with both preparing to suit up in new places. The implications and ripple effects of the stunning sell-off are many, but one thing is clear — New York will be building its defense back from the ground up.

The Jets are poised to build a defense that will be better than ever before

For years and years, during this current dismal period, the Jets' defense has been considered to be ahead of the offense. Stars like Williams, whose arrival dates back two regimes ago, and Gardner are major reasons why.

However, those two hadn't proven to be enough to build an elite caliber defense. The Jets haven't had many fourth-quarter leads the past couple of seasons, but when they have, like against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 1 or the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 3, the defense has folded like a house of cards when the game was on the line.

A lot of that has to do with the roster construction on that side of the ball. Football is a symbiotic sport, and that is especially true for a defense. On the value spectrum, edge rusher is the most valuable position. Cornerback also ranks highly, but the impact of a dominant edge rusher trumps what a star corner can do.

That's because an elite rusher off the edge can make everyone around him better, while the best a corner can do is shut down his side of the field. While at points in Robert Saleh's tenure, the pass rush was good, the team hasn't had a truly game-changing player on the edge since John Abraham.

Quinnen Williams is a top-three player at his position, but again, he can't provide what a star edge rusher can from the defensive tackle spot.

One could argue that paying a premium for such a player is counterintuitive, as a space-eater, pocket-mover type combined with an unstoppable force on the edge will have a greater impact on the defense as a whole than a dominant defensive tackle and a merely above-average edge.

At the end of the day, Darren Mougey and the Jets know this, which is why they structured Gardner's contract in such a way that he'd be easy to trade.

The move that wasn't made, holding onto Jermaine Johnson despite a team meeting their reported price, tells you everything you need to know. Johnson isn't a star, but alongside an elite player on the opposite edge, he can be very valuable.

At the end of the day, the Jets believe that the potential to have two solid corners in Brandon Stephens and Azareye'h Thomas, combined with the draft capital to grab a superstar edge, is a better configuration than having the game's best corner and an elite defensive tackle.

They're probably right. Now it's just a matter of getting out there and finding the pass rusher of their dreams. If they do, we could quickly see this unit rise to the top of the league.