NY Jets GM Darren Mougey is taking a bold and unconventional free agency approach

The New York Jets' approach in 2025 NFL free agency has been unlike any other in the team's history.

After securing key pieces on both sides of the ball — dual-threat quarterback Justin Fields and linebacker Jamien Sherwood — along with adding two projected starting defensive backs in cornerback Brandon Stephens and safety Andre Cisco, first-time general manager Darren Mougey has taken a unique approach to his first free agency period.

The opening wave of free agency has seen the Jets make multiple additions that typically occur at the tail-end of an offseason when teams are filling back-end roster spots after the draft has concluded.

The Jets, despite having enough cap space to target more high-profile veteran free agents, have opted instead to take short-term fliers on younger players who are in lesser demand. They have prioritized the latter in the opening days of free agency.

It's a seemingly backward approach that may have more forward-thinking principles than meets the eye.

NY Jets' free-agent signings show unique pattern

Including Cisco, the Jets have signed 11 unrestricted free agents to one-year deals. And excluding Cisco, the players signed will likely be backups when the 2025 regular season starts. In fact, it's not out of the realm of possibility that some of these signings are not even on the Jets' Week 1 roster.

• SAF Andre Cisco 
• DE Rashad Weaver 
• OT Chukwuma Okorafor 
• C Josh Myers 
• TE Stone Smartt 
• DT Byron Cowart
• DT Jay Tufele
• P Austin McNamara
• CB Kris Boyd
• WR Tyler Johnson
• DT Derrick Nnadi

The Jets' bargain-based shopping spree in free agency has called into question the team's desire to win as many games as possible in 2025, with many skeptics wondering if the franchise is positioning itself to "tank" with the idea of having better draft ammunition and taking a more aggressive approach in free agency a year from now.

Bypassing a reunion with veterans like Aaron Rodgers and Davante Adams feeds into that suspicion. To further that theory, the Jets did not engage in a bidding war with New England to retain 34-year-old offensive tackle Morgan Moses, whom the Patriots rewarded handsomely with a three-year deal worth $24 million.

The plethora of one-year low-risk signings coupled with the Jets allowing multiple big-ticket players to walk in free agency has set the franchise up to operate with more cap space next year but also to net compensatory selections in the 2026 NFL Draft.

It's a reward that the Jets have rarely obtained in the NFL's yearly formula for teams who lose top-end free agents. New York has netted the second-fewest compensatory picks in the NFL (17) since 1994.

A year ago, the Washington Commanders took a stockpiling approach in free agency, signing over two dozen players, mostly to one-year deals.

However, unlike the Jets' current approach, Washington's short-term free-agent deals featured multiple veterans over 30 years of age. The strategy was to shift the team's culture, by filling holes with veteran leaders.

The Jets, on the other hand, are loading up with younger players, many of whom have yet to establish themselves as key contributors. New York is taking low-risk short-term flyers in the chance that players like Tyler Johnson and Stone Smartt might reach new heights.

The fact that these types of targeted signings are happening early on in free agency suggests that it isn't a case of a team scouring over leftover scraps after failing to court more prominent targets. There is a designed method to what could be perceived as madness by win-thirsty Jets fans.

Mougey and Aaron Glenn worked doubly hard at the NFL Combine to suggest that the Jets weren't in a rebuild. But at the bare minimum, actions by the new Jets regime in free agency are lending themselves more toward a reset than a traditional retooling.

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