Gang Green Nation
As you likely know, the Jets were very active at the trade deadline, dealing star defenders Quinnen Williams and Sauce Gardner.
It drew less attention, but Breece Hall, who was perhaps the Jets player most subject to trade rumors heading into the deadline, remains with the team. Hall is set to become a free agent at the end of the season.
We might presume this is a sign the Jets want to keep Hall. If they had no intention of re-signing him, it would have made sense to trade him in a lost season and get something in return rather than letter him walk for nothing in a few months.
Of course these decisions come down to dollars and cents. If the Jets want to keep Hall, they need to find a contract that works for both player and team. A deal needs to make sense for both sides.
I would argue that the Jets’ moves at the deadline changed the definition of what makes sense for the Jets.
Prior to dealing Gardner and Williams, the Jets had a foundation of stars in their prime they were building around, Garnder, Williams, and Garrett Wilson. Gardner and Wilson just got big money extensions a few months ago. Williams would have required an extension soon if the team was going to keep him.
It’s a pretty common (and common sense) way to build your team. Use star players as your foundation. You have to pay for quality to get quality in this league so these players are almost always expensive.
Of course the NFL has a hard salary cap. So if you pay your top end guys handsomely, there is a limited budget for the rest of your team. You generally need to set a hard limit on what you spend on most other players, particularly those are low value positions like running back.
Under a team building model like this, the Jets could conceivably keep Breece Hall but only at a reasonable price. Otherwise the Jets would risk not having resources for the rest of their team.
The trade deadline activity changed everything. Two of the three big money Jets players are now gone. The team is also flush with high Draft picks over the next two years. Those picks will give the team the potential to add multiple star level talents, but these players will be on inexpensive rookie contracts the first four years of their careers.
The Jets no longer have expensive veteran players aside from Wilson. Unloading the contracts of Williams and Garnder also created a mountain of salary cap space.
The Jets will need to spend quite a bit of that cap space in the years ahead. Through this process the Jets have gone from one extreme to another. The Jets currently have $100 million in dead money counting against their salary cap. That is the result of their strategy in 2023 and 2024 to borrow future resources in a failed attempt to load up around Aaron...
