The New York Jets are in a much different place in 2025.
During an appearance on “The Mina Kimes Show featuring Lenny”, ESPN broadcaster Ryan Clark ranked the Jets as the No. 27 team in the NFL. Last year on this same show, Clark ranked the Jets as the 12th-best team in the league.
For context, Kimes does her NFL power rankings show, “The Power Hour”, in a unique way.
She gives her guest, in this case Ryan Clark, two teams to choose from for each slot starting at No. 1. Whoever he picks gets the slot, the team that he doesn’t select battles with the next team that Kimes presents him.
“It was a toss-up to be honest,” Clark admitted when asked who is better between the Jets or the Carolina Panthers. In other words, the Jets were this close to being ranked as a bottom-five team in the league this year ahead of training camp.
The #Jets were ranked as a bottom-6 team in the #NFL! 😭@Realrclark25 placed NYJ at No. 27.
Now it should be noted @minakimes does her power rankings differently.
She gives her guests 2 teams to choose from for each slot, the winning team that is chosen gets that slot, the… pic.twitter.com/A1jMJLjFty
— Paul Andrew Esden Jr (@BoyGreen25) July 2, 2025
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Clark was named to his first and only Pro Bowl in 2011.
Some Honesty From Clark on Where the Jets Are At
“C.J. Mosley was injured a ton last year [and] he ends up retiring. I think that the way they utilized Quincy Williams showed that he can do so much more than what we’ve seen before. I think he played at an All-Pro level,” Clark said.
Williams is a former first-team All-Pro, but he didn’t necessarily play like it throughout the 2024 season. The other linebacker that deserves a mention is Jamien Sherwood. He was the direct benefactor of Mosley’s injury issues, replacing him in the starting lineup.
This offseason, he was rewarded as a top-five highest-paid linebacker in football on a three-year $45 million contract.
“[Will] McDonald becoming a factor on the outside. [Jermaine] Johnson should be back healthy this year,” Clark added.
McDonald had the breakout year that a lot of people were waiting for. Despite finishing with 10.5 sacks, fans were left wanting more.
McDonald recorded eight of his 10.5 sacks in the first seven weeks of the season. Across the final 10 games of the year, McDonald only had 2.5 sacks. That means there is plenty of untapped potential for McDonald that lies beneath the surface.
“Maybe we see Sauce [Gardner] come back and be the Sauce that we had in the first two seasons,” Clark openly speculated.
Gardner has played three seasons in the NFL. Two of those three, he was a first-team All-Pro. The data says he is more likely to turn into that player than the one we saw in year No. 3.
“Garrett [Wilson] and Justin [Fields] feels good to me.”
Short and sweet. An Ohio State tandem reunion should only be good news for the Jets this season.
“If I’m the Jets, I probably dangle Breece Hall as trade bait,” Clark said. “If he [stays] there and what Justin Fields adds to the running game and the way that you can utilize Breece in the pass game as well, I think this offense could be pretty good, pretty dangerous.”
The Hall trade rumors will never go away.
A Lot of People Seem to Be Sleeping on the Jets
NFL Insider Albert Breer shared one offseason thought on every team in the league ahead of training camp.
“The Jets are another more-talented-than-you-think team. Both lines of scrimmage are loaded with first-rounders, and there are fewer holes than people may realize (and not one, at this point, that makes the team look truly deficient at a spot). So we’ll see whether Justin Fields can get the job done. The Steelers chose to make an effort to keep him rather than trying to keep [Russell] Wilson, which is an indication of the impression he made in Pittsburgh,” Breer wrote in a column for Sports Illustrated.
Gang Green is being slept on, but they have no one to blame but themselves.
Over the last two calendar years, the Jets have been the conductor of the NFL’s hype train. Acquiring future Pro Football Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers, trading for splashy players, and openly discussing their Super Bowl aspirations. It was two years of talk and two years of little results.
The NFL doesn’t like getting duped, and they won’t go out of their way to promote the Jets until they prove themselves worthy. In addition to that very real thing, head coach Aaron Glenn has preached “moving in silence” this offseason. Instead, let the play on the field do the talking. That would be a refreshing change of scenery for the green and white if they can employ that strategy in 2025.
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