Nobody can say for sure right now how good the Jets are going to be in 2025.

We have a full off season to add players.

But there are some early indicators that might tell us what kind of team we're looking at.

We'll talk about the 2025 Jets ahead here on Locked On Jets.

You are Locked on Jets, your daily New York Jets podcast, part of the Locked on Podcasts Network, your team every day.

Welcome, this is the Locked On Jets podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. It's Wednesday, March 5th, 2025. And I'm your host, John B from gangreneation.com. Thank you so much for making the show your first listener, first watch every day. A big shout out to you every dayers. This is a daily podcast covering the New York Jets with new episodes each day through the week, Monday through Friday. Today we're going to do our weekly mailbag show. Each Wednesday, we try and do a mailbag with listener questions. Thanks so much to everybody who sent in your questions. First question, John, how do you feel about the Jets at this early stage? I know we have to go through the draft in free agency, but are you optimistic or pessimistic right now about the team's chances in 2025? And that's a great question. And, you know, as you mentioned, we don't have the full team yet. We've got a lot of moves that need to be made. We have a new head coach and a new general manager. So that adds a lot to the variance. You know, it could mean that the team has a higher ceiling than people expect. it mean that the team has a higher ceiling than people expect.

It could mean the team has a lower floor than people expect.

But I have a few thoughts on the 2025 Jets because right now it kind of feels like the fan base is divided into one of two camps.

I actually think both of these camps are wrong.

There's the camp that says the jets are doomed now because Aaron Rogers and Devante Adams are gone. We're tanking this year. We're going to have a top five pick. I don't

agree with that. And then there's another camp and this camp just got a big news because the Jets

cut Devante Adams and they're saying, well, Jets are in great cap shape. We're top 10 in cap space

in the league where we're all set.

I don't think either of these is really accurate. So let me start by talking about the people who are excited about the cap space and now everything's all.

Now we're now we're in good shape cap wise. You can't just look at the raw number. I'm going to talk to a little bit about this on yesterday show. You can't just look at the raw number of cap space you have because, yeah, the Jets technically may be in the top 10 in cap space in the NFL, but they have a lot of needs. You have to combine the needs with the amount of money you have. This was a mistake people made constantly when Mike McCagnan was the general manager because the Jets were among the league leaders in Cappspace for most of Mike McCagin's tenure. And McCagin was treated as like some sort of cap visionary. In reality, it wasn't because he was managing the cap all that well. It's because he didn't have any good players who recommended big contracts. That's the real. I mean, it's easy to have a lot of cap space if you don't have good players.

Now, the current Jets team has good players, but they're almost all on rookie contracts.

So almost all the good players for this team are cheap.

What the Jets don't have are good veteran players on their second and third contracts for the most part outside of, and Williams. I may be able to find another exception or two. You can say $52 million. Jets don't have a quarterback right now. Jets don't have two of their three starting receivers on the team right now. Jets don't have a right tackle right now. On the defensive side of the ball, Jets don't have a starting defensive tackle.

Jets don't have a pair of rotational defensive tackles. We're going to take a pick snaps. Jets need a third defensive end to rotate in with Will MacDonald and Jermaine Johnson. I mean, look, maybe you want to bring C.J. Mosley back. I don't. I want to bring Jamie and Sherwood back. And if I don't bring Jamie and Sherwood back, I want an upgrade on Mosley right now.

Jets don't have a number two corner right now.

Jets don't have a number two corner right now. Jets don't have a safe. I mean, Jets need at least one safety, maybe two, because I don't know that I really want Tony Adams playing safety. You could go either way on that. So you can't sit there. I say the Jets have Jets are set because they have $52 million. And you also have to look at like the cap situation where Jets already have $30 million in dead money. And that's not even including the Aaron Rogers portion of it. And when Rogers, if the Rogers is post-June first cut, we're up to $44 million. And that's before, you know, they potentially make other cuts. I mean, they handled a lot of their contract structures very poorly. Tyler Conklin's going to count against the cap next year. DJ Reed's going to count against the cap next year. Those are some of the better ones. DeMonte Adams going to count against the cap next year. Javon Kinlaw is going to count against the cap next year. Mike Williams is going to count against the cap next year. Very poor cap management by Joe Douglas. I mean, to have this much dead money already, and we haven't even gotten into the offseason where the Jets are going to cut other guys and add to that total, for, and dead money is really, you're paying for a guy for what they did in the past. Jets are paying these guys to go five and 12. So the cap situation is not great. On the other hand, I can't say that the Jets are doomed now,

that they're heading to the bottom of the league,

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