Building A Jets Core 2023: Jermaine Johnson

We have the 7th 2023 core member of the New York Jets, as voted by all of you. And the winner is: Jermaine Johnson, Edge! Jermaine Johnson was drafted by the Jets with the 26th overall pick in the 1st round of the 2022 NFL draft. As a rookie he was stuck behind starters John Franklin-Myers and Carl Lawson on the edge. As a result Johnson played just 34% of the Jets’ defensive snaps in 2022. In limited duty Johnson had 29 tackles and 2.5 sacks. Jets fans hope he can develop into a starter on the edge soon. With Johnson taking the 7th spot, our crowd sourced Jets Core 2023 looks like this:

1. Sauce Gardner
2. Garrett Wilson
3. Quinnen Williams
4. Alijah Vera-Tucker
5. Breece Hall
6. D.J. Reed
7. Jermaine Johnson
8. ?

By 2024 many of today’s players will be gone as the Jets braintrust continues to build the roster (or a new braintrust is brought in). A core group of Jets will emerge who will form the backbone of the team Jets fans hope will soon return to the post-season. Your job, should you choose to accept it, is to think alongside the Jets’ staff and vote for who you think are the most likely players to form that core and still be here on opening day of the 2024 season. Nobody knows for sure how things will play out, and evaluating the chances of some of the younger players who have barely scratched the surface yet is tricky, but we know who the coaching staff is and what type of players might fit their system, so let’s give this a shot. Let’s crowd source a Jets Core 2023.

Through late February I’ll be putting up a daily poll asking GGN to vote on the most likely current Jets players to still be with the team in 2024. I’ll include some current Jets that are not under contract for the 2023 season and may leave in free agency this year, but I will not include any player in college, in the 2023 NFL draft, any player currently under contract with another team, or any free agent who wasn’t with the Jets at the end of 2022. The idea here is to build a list of the current Jets players you think will most likely make up a core group the team will build around to begin to construct a playoff contender.

If a name you think should be on the poll is not there you can write in candidates in the comments section. If a player gets support in the comments section I’ll add him to the poll.

We all have different views on various Jets players. What we’re looking for here is the community’s collective view of the players who might help lead the Jets out of the wilderness in the coming years.

So let’s get to it. Today we continue with the number 8 Jets core player. Who will it be? Vote early, vote often, and let’s hear who you think are the players that will be the Jets leaders of the future.