The New York Jets aren’t going to sneak up on anyone this season. They’ve finished last in their division seven times since 2016 and haven’t made the playoffs since 2010. But underneath the rebuild, three real position battles are playing out in Florham Park this month, and each one will decide actual snaps once Week 1 arrives — not just fantasy sleeper buzz.
WR2: Omar Cooper Jr. vs. Adonai Mitchell
Garrett Wilson isn’t going anywhere as the Jets’ No. 1 receiver. The fight is for the No. 2 job behind him, and it’s between a trade acquisition trying to salvage his career and a first-round rookie trying to prove he belongs immediately.
Mitchell arrived via trade last season and reported to Florham Park just nine days later, stepping into a receiver room that had just lost Wilson to injury. He’s shown the vertical speed that made him a name at Georgia and Indianapolis, hauling in a red-zone touchdown from Geno Smith during an August 7 practice. But the concerns that followed him from the Colts haven’t disappeared — he’s still prone to getting knocked off his route and has had drop issues in camp.
Cooper, the 30th overall pick out of Indiana, has answered mostly with quiet consistency. He caught a touchdown from Smith in 7-on-7 work, broke off a long gain after catching a short pass from backup Cade Klubnik, and beat safety Andre Cisco on a deep sideline ball that offensive coordinator Frank Reich called one of the best plays of the summer. He’s also had his rough moments — a linebacker hit jarred the ball loose from him in one practice — which is normal for a rookie still adjusting to NFL speed.
Reich has been direct about wanting explosive plays from both of them alongside Wilson. Neither has separated from the other yet, and that’s likely to stay true through preseason games, when live tackling will tell the Jets more than padded camp reps can.
Safety: A Four-Man Race Behind Minkah Fitzpatrick
The Jets’ safety room went from a weakness to a genuine strength this offseason, and now the problem is fitting everyone in. Minkah Fitzpatrick, acquired in a trade with Miami, is a lock to start. The battle is for the second spot — and it involves three players with legitimate NFL track records.
Andre Cisco is back on a cheaper one-year deal after a torn pectoral ended his 2025 season in Week 8. He was one of the more productive ball-hawks in Jacksonville before signing with New York, but he finished last season without a single interception — as did the entire Jets roster, a first in NFL history. Dane Belton, signed away from the Giants in March, brings something different: he posted the lowest missed-tackle rate (4.1%) of any safety with at least 400 snaps last season, according to Pro Football Focus data cited by The Athletic. And Malachi Moore, a fourth-round pick a year ago, started 14 games as a rookie and racked up 95 tackles, second-most on the team, despite some tendency to freelance out of position.
Early camp reports have Cisco getting the first crack at the starting job opposite Fitzpatrick, but nothing is settled. The Jets have said they could play three safeties at once in certain packages, which would soften the stakes of “starter” vs. “backup” and let all three carve out real defensive snaps regardless of who wins the depth chart on paper.
WR4: Isaiah Williams Is Forcing His Way Into the Offense
Then there’s the name nobody outside the building expected to matter this summer. Isaiah Williams was New York’s 2025 team MVP largely for special-teams work and effort behind the scenes — not for anything he did as a receiver. That’s starting to look outdated.
Connor Hughes of SNY reported that Williams caught four passes with the starters in a recent scrimmage, including a 36-yard touchdown on the opening drive, then added a 50-plus-yard catch from Klubnik with the backups to set up another score. Head coach Aaron Glenn praised him earlier in the week and doubled down afterward, saying Williams’ play “demands” more reps and that the staff has to make sure he’s involved.
That doesn’t mean a depth-chart jump is coming. Williams is still working behind Wilson, Mitchell and Cooper, and the Jets aren’t likely to bump a first-round pick or a starter for camp flashes. What it does mean is that New York, which finished dead last in the NFL in passing offense last season at 140.3 yards per game, has an extra weapon it didn’t plan on relying on. If injuries or inconsistency open a window at receiver, Williams has put enough on tape this summer to walk through it.
What It All Means
None of these three battles will be decided by anything that happens in a no-pads practice in August. But together they tell a coherent story about this Jets team: a roster that upgraded aggressively at safety, is still sorting out its receiver pecking order behind Wilson, and might have found a surprise contributor in a player nobody drafted to catch passes. Preseason games, where tackling and coverage get tested for real, will start separating camp buzz from actual Week 1 roles.
