Run for their money
Gang Green ready to reshape roster with NFL-high $89.9M
The Jets finally are No. 1 ... in salary-cap space.
With the moves the Browns made on Friday, acquiring Jarvis Landry and Tyrod Taylor, the Jets moved past Cleveland to the top of the heap when it comes to salary-cap space in the NFL. They have $89.9 million in space, according to overthecap.com, as free agency begins Monday with teams being permitted to talk to agents. Players can not officially sign deals until 4 p.m. Wednesday.
The Jets have the money to spend. The question now is whether they can find enough players worth spending it on. That is the problem with NFL free agency — the players who usually become free agents do so for a reason. They have a flaw that makes them expendable to their current teams whether that be age, salary demand or production. It is what scares some teams off from spending big in free agency.
For the Jets, they know they will end up overpaying players in free agency, but they can do that because of the war chest they currently have. The benefit of drafting so poorly from 2008-14 is they have very few of their own young players they need to pay. Leonard Williams figures to be the next one and he is not scheduled to hit free agency until 2020 if the Jets exercise his fifth-year option.
The Jets have targets in mind and they hope to find players who can stick with their team for several years. That starts with quarterback Kirk Cousins, whose agent will surely get a call from the Jets on Monday to set up a visit with the top free agent. After Cousins, general manager Mike Maccagnan will be looking for younger free agents who can be part of his team’s core.
“I think our approach will be, obviously, to try to figure out every position and make it as competitive as possible,” Maccagnan said at the scouting combine, “and to a certain degree I think we’re going to try do things that will help us not only in this coming season but obviously identify players that can help us next year and the year after that, so we continue to build a young group of players. We made a lot of very tough decisions last year, sort of retooling the roster with the idea that after we got through last year we’d get to this season when we have a lot of cap space and cash to potentially work with. That’s what we’re excited about.”
The Jets have plenty of holes to fill. On offense (besides quarterback), expect them to be aggressive at running back, center and possibly wide receiver. On defense, they need to add another cornerback and possibly a pass rusher.
They also are trying to resign several of their own free agents, including Demario Davis, Morris Claiborne and Austin Seferian-Jenkins.