For the Jets, developing under-the-radar offensive talent could be a cheat code to accelerate the rebuild,

and failing to do so will make a tough task even tougher.

Locked-on Jets starts now.

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Welcome, this is the Locked-on Jets podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day.

It is Thursday, February 19th, 2026, and I'm your host, John B from gangreneation.com. Thank you so much for making the show your first listen or first watch every day and for making locked on the number one sports podcast network. A big shout out to you every day.ers, if you're new to the show, this is a daily podcast covering the New York Jets with new episodes each day through the week, Monday through Friday.

Today we're talking about offensive upgrades for the Jets, but we're not talking about players the Jets could sign in free agency or draft.

We're talking about guys who are already here.

And if these players develop, it could make the Jets rebuild easier.

We'll talk about a couple of wide receivers who the team is looking to take the next step in 2026.

We'll talk about a second year tight end who did okay in this first season, but hasn't quite shown he's a starting caliber player yet.

And the Jets need him to take the next step in 26.

But we'll begin by talking about a possible compliment to Brees Hall who's already on the team. Now,

of course, Brees Hall is about to hit free agency. And if you've been following the rumor

mill this week, there's all sorts of talk out there about the Jets potentially using the franchise

tag on Brees. There's also speculation that maybe Brees wants to go elsewhere. And I don't

think the speculation is unfair. You know, there was a recent Brees Hall social media post that people are reading into where Brees did not explicitly say anything that people are maybe reading between the lines. Difficult to say whether something's there or whether it's not there. I'll put it this way. If I was Brees Hall and I'm four years into my career and I've been with the Jets and seen nothing but losing, I could not blame him if he wanted to go elsewhere. We don't know for a fact where his mind is right now, though, and we'll only find that out in the weeks ahead. I consider Breeze Hall a must keep for this team. And my view on this has changed since the trade deadline. Heading into the trade deadline, the Jets had a core. They had sauce gardener. They had Quinn and Williams. They had Garrett Wilson. They had some expensive players. And Brees, I thought, was in that second tier. And when you're building an NFL team, guys in that second tier are players you'd like to keep, but only at the right price. You can get yourself into big cap trouble if you overpay guys in that second tier, guys who aren't necessarily that number one priority in your core. But after the trades of Sauce Gardner and Quinn and Williams, the Jets now really only have one expensive veteran, and that's Garrett Wilson. Jets now have a ton of cap space. And this team is going to be rebuilt, or at least they're going to try and rebuild this team

through the draft picks they got. And draft picks tend to be inexpensive players. The first four years

of their career are cost-controlled. So to fill in veterans around the young core that's coming

in, Jets are going to have to spend big. And a lot of this is going to have to be spent on importing

players from other teams.

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