Jets’ 2022 draft class lacks wins despite individual success

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — There was so much optimism in the New York Jets’ locker room that wintry afternoon in New England — the final game of the 2023 regular season. With one win, they vanquished an old bully and celebrated their future.

It was a messy year for the Jets, who stumbled to 7-10 after Aaron Rodgers’ season-ending injury in Week 1, but they ended a 15-game losing streak to the New England Patriots in Bill Belichick’s last game as coach. After two decades of hoodie-induced torment, the Jets felt as if they had finally passed the Patriots, who finished last in the AFC East.

After all, Rodgers was on the mend from a torn Achilles and would be healthy by the spring. His anticipated return, combined with the maturation of their gilded 2022 draft class, was going to make the Jets a Super Bowl contender. That was the plan, anyway.

The ’22ers — Sauce Gardner, Garrett Wilson, Jermaine Johnson and Breece Hall — played key roles in the 17-3 win, none more than Hall, who glided the snow-covered field like a slalom skier. He ran for 178 yards, still his career high. The four players were big reasons why Rodgers wanted to play for the Jets, why the Jets felt as if they were on the cusp of something special, on the cusp of ending the longest playoff drought in major North American sports.

“Once you put this uniform on, you’re part of the history,” C.J. Mosley, a captain, said that day. “So it’s our time to start changing that history and start moving forward.”

It turned out to be a snow job.

The Jets are 7-19 since beating Belichick, having replaced their coach, general manager and quarterback. Gardner is gone, traded last week in a stunning deadline move. Hall and Johnson wonder about their long-term futures, while Wilson — coping with injuries for the first time — ponders his football mortality.

The Jets (2-7) and Patriots (8-2) meet Thursday (8:15 p.m. ET, Prime Video) at Gillette Stadium, 677 days after the ’23 finale. The rejuvenated Pats are back to chasing championships. The Jets are back to plotting for the future, with a Core Four-turned-Three that longs for that kind of success.

THE 2022 NFL draft was in Las Vegas, fitting for the Jets. They hit the jackpot under former general manager Joe Douglas, selecting Gardner (No. 4), Wilson (No. 10) and Johnson (No. 26) in the first round. They were whisked to a private jet and flew a red eye to New Jersey, enjoying the trappings of luxury travel and talking about all the great things they were going to do together. In Jersey, they were joined by Hall, picked in the second round — 10 spots after Johnson.

“They’re the future,” Mosley said during the early days of the Core Four.

The foursome was intact for 3½ seasons before Gardner was traded to the Indianapolis Colts, which brought back a significant haul — first-round picks in 2026 and 2027 and wide receiver Adonai Mitchell. The ’22ers achieved individual success, with nine-figure contract extensions for Gardner and Wilson, but there was no team success. Not a single winning season.

For the record, the four of them played together in only 26 out of a possible 59 games, mainly because of major injuries to Hall (2022) and Johnson (2024). They didn’t last long enough, or do enough, to be considered their own era.

“Obviously, it’s kind of a reminder of the business that we’re in,” Wilson said, alluding to the Gardner trade and the league’s volatility.

And now, despite arriving at the same time, they’re at different places in the NFL ecosystem.

Hall is in the final year of his contract, headed toward free agency. He’s only 24, riding a 1,200-yard rushing pace. He’s looking at a big payday in March — at least for running backs — whether it’s from the Jets or another team. From all indications, they will try to re-sign him. The franchise tag is projected at $14 million.

Johnson is signed through 2026 (a guaranteed $13.4 million, the amount of his fifth-year option), but he certainly will be looking for an extension. He made the Pro Bowl after a breakout season in 2023, but he also has sat out 18 games because of injuries. That didn’t stop teams from showing significant interest during last week’s trade deadline.

Wilson has the security of the four-year, $130 million contract extension he signed in July — or does he? Gardner, who has the most impressive résumé of the bunch after being named Defensive Rookie of the Year, All-Pro (2022, 2023) and a Pro Bowl pick (2022, 2023), signed a similarly structured deal for close to the same amount ($120 million) at the same time as Wilson, and he was traded.

“We’re all replaceable as hell,” Wilson said. “That’s just the way I see it.”

Wilson has professed his faith in coach Aaron Glenn, but will he be on board if it means having to endure the growing pains of a rookie quarterback in 2026? Wilson is a fierce competitor who wants to win badly, and his NFL clock is ticking.

This season has been an emotional roller coaster for Wilson, along with the contract and reuniting with his former Ohio State quarterback in Justin Fields, there’s the injuries. He’s expected to sit out at least three to four weeks because of a knee sprain, a source told ESPN, after sitting out two of the past three games because of an injury to the same knee. Until then, he had played in 57 straight games.

That time away, he said, taught him that football can be cruel, that no one is guaranteed anything.

“Maybe I was taking it for granted a little bit,” Wilson said.

Then there’s the losing. It can take a toll on the psyche of prideful athletes. There was a time, in a lost season from the 1990s, when a Jets cornerback named James Hasty was crying in his locker. Nearby, teammate Mo Lewis saw Hasty and was taken aback that a player could be that affected by sustained losing.

It happens.

It happened to Quinnen Williams, who, after six-plus seasons of it, coveted a change of scenery. He wound up being traded last week to the Dallas Cowboys, where he acknowledged his feelings about the Jets. The ’22ers don’t want to be in that position. Hall might already be there.

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“It’s very frustrating,” Hall said. “I don’t want to compare myself to other people, but I do feel like I’m one of the better running backs in the league. But if you’re losing games, and you’re getting down early, you can’t always show that.

“I’m definitely at a point in my career where I’ve been here for three or four years where we expected to win and it didn’t happen,” Hall added. “So it sucks, but it is what it is.”

THE JETS HAVE a plan. A big plan.

After the trades of Gardner and Williams, they hold five first-round picks and three second-round choices over the next two drafts — the kind of stockpile about which organizations dream. They have enough draft capital to trade up for their favorite quarterback prospect or perhaps trade for a veteran. First-year GM Darren Mougey has optionality. He could draft another Core Four, resetting the organization.

“The new regime is putting their stamp on it,” a rival personnel executive said. “It’s also an opportunity to get their salary cap and their allocation maybe a little more the way they want it, create flexibility in the draft and free agency. Good players do go out, but future assets to help build it through their vision are coming.”

Patriots coach Mike Vrabel, who interviewed for the Jets’ head coaching vacancy last offseason, said of his division rivals, “I see a young, excited team that basically said, ‘This is what we’re going to do for our future, and we’re not going to complain about it. We’re not going to mope about it.'”

Despite a 2-7 record, heading to their 15th straight season out of the playoffs, the Jets do have some building blocks.

They have Wilson, young tackles Olu Fashanu and Armand Membou and promising rookie tight end Mason Taylor. They have edge rushers Will McDonald IV (four sacks last week) and Johnson, who almost certainly will attract trade interest in the offseason. Can the Jets again resist the temptation to trade him?

The big question (aside from the perennial quarterback search) is Hall, who is averaging a career-best 98 yards from scrimmage. He’s producing at such a high level that if the Jets had thoughts of letting him test free agency, they might have to reconsider.

In the past two games, both wins, Hall has 216 rushing yards, 2 rushing touchdowns, 1 receiving touchdown and 1 passing touchdown. On Sunday, he performed an amazing escape, jump-cutting away from two would-be tacklers in the backfield, moving laterally for an instant and bursting through a hole for 30 yards. Even in slow motion, it was hard to comprehend.

“He’s that man,” Fields said. “It’s simple. He’s that man.”

A team should want to retain a player like that, but there are no guarantees on the Jets, not anymore, not after they traded away two popular players. Any sense of security in the locker room was shattered by the trades, some players said privately.

Of course, that could be part of Glenn’s motivation. His mentor is Pro Football Hall of Famer Bill Parcells, who never wanted players to feel comfortable. In their world, complacency is the C-word.

Hall — still gliding across fields (snow or no snow) — lived with trade speculation for several months. No doubt, the chatter about his future will continue into the offseason as free agency approaches.

A lot of players would be unnerved. Hall?

“For me,” he said, “it’s kind of like, ‘F it.'”