What should the Jets do at sweet 16?
Last week, we dove into the four most popular mocked players at the time for pick #16: Makai Lemon, Keldric Faulk, Peter Woods, and David Bailey. This week, we’ll take a brief look at four other possibilities according to the latest mock drafts.
Jermod McCoy:
This one will undoubtedly be met with some passionate angst. Prospect evaluation aside, this pick carries extra baggage. It was one of the selections acquired in the Sauce Gardner trade. The idea of the Jets moving a top-flight corner in his prime only to turn around and draft another corner who, in a best-case scenario, merely becomes “another Sauce” is understandably going to rub a lot of fans the wrong way.
Putting that aside, it’s hard not to like Jermod McCoy as a prospect, though there is one massive red flag: his injury history. McCoy tore his ACL in January 2025 and missed his entire junior season as a result.
That said, his on-field tape is super impressive.
As a 19-year-old sophomore in the SEC, McCoy wasn’t just good, he was excellent. No matter how you frame it, he played at an elite level, and doing so at such a young age only adds to the evaluation. In 2024, McCoy allowed a 53.6 passer rating when targeted, gave up receptions on just 50% of throws, and recorded four interceptions along with six pass breakups. Those numbers helped him finish as a top-five cornerback in PFF coverage grade among Power Four schools. To put that into perspective, two of the players ranked ahead of him ultimately became first-round picks last year. No one as young as he did performed as well as he did.
McCoy has solid size, has shown the ability to thrive in both man and zone coverage (grading top 10 in each), and held up well as a run defender. The main on-field concern is his tendency to get a bit too handsy at times, which resulted in eight penalties.
Still, the sophomore tape was strong enough (and his true freshman season at Oregon State impressive enough to draw interest from Tennessee in the transfer portal) that McCoy has remained a consensus top-20 prospect in this draft class for well over a year. Cornerback might not be the most natural need just because of the external circumstances, but this very much is a roster that needs good players everywhere. McCoy just might be that.
Kenyon Sadiq:
This will be another polarizing one. Looking into Sadiq, the main thing that jumps out: athleticism. There’s no questioning Sadiq’s raw athletic profile. He’s an athletic freak. Just look at what Bruce Feldman wrote about him when he landed on his annual Freaks List. Feldman wrote:
“The 6’3” Sadiq came to Oregon two years ago at 220 pounds but is now 255. He’s much leaner this season thanks to healthier eating, which he said has enabled him to go from 12–13 percent body fat to about 10. He vertical jumped 41.5 inches this summer, power cleaned 365 pounds and bench pressed 435.”
Between the testing numbers and the tape, it’s easy to see why Sadiq is expected to test extremely well at the combine. That athletic profile and younger age (Sadiq is still 20) is what’s keeping him firmly in first-round conversations and heavily mocked in this range.
The big question, though, is simple: with tools like this, why hasn’t the production followed? The numbers don’t jump off the page. In his first season as a full-time starter, Sadiq posted 51 catches for 560 yards and eight touchdowns. That’s slightly disappointing considering the buzz and the fact he was coming off an absurdly efficient 25 catches on 27 targets in a reserve role the year prior. Advanced metrics tell a similar story. His yards per route run ranked just 31st among tight ends with at least 30 targets, despite being used primarily in the slot and out wide.
To his credit, Sadiq was an excellent red zone target, and a big reason Dante Moore was so efficient when throwing in his direction. Still, with an athletic profile like his, you’d expect more consistent dominance. As it stands, most of his receiving metrics pale in comparison to recent first-round tight ends such as Colston Loveland, Tyler Warren, and Brock Bowers.
Now, I’d be remiss to not note that Sadiq dealt with lingering lower-body injuries throughout the season, including hip and ankle issues that caused him to miss games and exit others early. It’s entirely possible those injuries played a significant role in his muted production, but that’s something NFL scouts will have to determine on film.
Sadiq would be a natural fit despite the team drafting Mason Taylor just a year ago. The Jets will need as many pass catchers and as much offensive talent as possible for any future draft pick at quarterback. He legitimately can play in-line, the slot, and even out wide at times. He’s a weapon.
At No. 16, though, it would be a tough sell at this stage. If he were to slide out of the first round, it becomes a very different conversation. For now, I’d need to see more, despite the love he’s getting in draft circles.
Denzel Boston:
The third player mentioned today is one I expect to be fairly popular, largely due to the Jets’ need at wide receiver and his obvious plug-and-play fit: Denzel Boston. Boston has hovered in the 20–30 range on consensus mock boards for months, but recently he’s started to creep into the teens.
From an on-field fit perspective, it’s hard to find a better match for the Jets at wide receiver than Boston. He brings something the current Jets receiver room largely lacks: size.
Boston measures in at 6’4”, 210 pounds, and he plays like it. After a breakout junior season in which he posted 63 catches for 894 yards and nine touchdowns, Boston largely lived up to expectations as a senior. From a traditional statistical standpoint, the production was nearly identical: 62 catches, 881 yards, and 11 touchdowns. The advanced metrics were a bit stronger as well. Boston ranked inside the top 30 across most receiving efficiency metrics, posting 2.44 yards per route run, a 3.1% drop rate, and compiling 49 first downs. Despite not seeing a high volume of them, he also thrived on contested targets, hauling in 10 of 13. All this resulted in him being one of PFF’s highest graded receivers in the country.
That production matches what shows up on tape. Boston has the physical makeup of a true X receiver and was used as such, something the Jets desperately need. It’s easy to project him as a productive intermediate and red-zone threat at the next level thanks to his strength, strong hands, size, and more-than-adequate athleticism and route running.
On quick glance, Boston does appear to lack the elite burst and sudden change-of-direction ability that typically separates the very top receivers in a class. But if he did have that trait, he almost certainly wouldn’t be available at pick No. 16 given everything else he brings to the table.
At this stage of the process, Boston feels like one of the more sensible options. He fills a clear need, and while his production doesn’t quite match the likes of Makai Lemon or Carnell Tate, it was still more than strong enough to justify first-round consideration.
Kayden McDonald:
Our final player is someone who has skyrocketed up draft boards. Unlike most of the prospects mentioned across these two articles (many of whom have been in first-round conversations for months or even years) Kayden McDonald was viewed as a consensus Day 2 pick just two months ago. As the season went on, however, he became increasingly difficult to ignore.
McDonald arrived at Ohio State as a highly regarded four-star recruit but spent his first two seasons as a rotational piece. That changed in his junior year, when he truly broke out. On tape, he looks the part. Measured at 6’3”, 326 pounds, McDonald consistently shows the ability to anchor and absorb double teams.
With McDonald, the evaluation is fairly straightforward: he is an elite run defender. Pick your metric, he likely led it or finished near the top. PFF run-defense grade? Led the country. Tackles on run downs? Led the country. Forced fumbles? Led the country. Stop rate? You get the idea. The encouraging part is that it’s hard to envision a scenario where a player with his size, strength, and awareness isn’t at least an above-average run defender at the NFL level.
The obvious concern (and a fair one) is his pass rushing. McDonald finished the season with just two sacks, and while he was aligned primarily as a nose tackle, none of his pressure or pass-rush metrics stood out compared to typical players at the position.
That leads to the central question: is he impactful enough as a run defender alone to justify a first-round pick? I’d argue the answer might be yes, especially given how the NFL has trended in recent years. We’ve seen players like Jordan Davis, Dexter Lawrence, and Vita Vea (each with varying levels of pass-rush upside) have massive impacts on their defenses and elevate the players around them.
We’ll see how McDonald’s evaluation ultimately settles, but he’s not someone I’d be quick to write off as a first-round option.
Category: General Sports
