Welcome to the AFC East version of Optimus Fantasy’s Team Previews! Today, we’re looking at the New York Jets. In order to best know where we’re going, we often need to study where we’ve been. With that in mind, I will cover what the team looked like in 2024, fantasy significant changes to philosophy and personnel, and what I expect from the team in 2025. Your fantasy drafts are coming. Stay ready, so you don’t have to get ready.

The New York Jets in 2024

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Team Stats
PROE	2.39 +
4th Down Go For It!	20.87
Target GINI	0.5245
Rushing GINI	0.7828 +
Plays/Game: Offense	59.4 –

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Let’s start off by defining a few things, shall we?

Note: Any stat highlighted green with a “+” means it’s significantly, at least 1 standard deviation, above average. Any stat highlighted red with a “-“ means it’s significantly below average. If the stat is highlighted in blue and doesn’t have a symbol, it is within the standard deviation for that stat.

PROE – Pass Rate Over Expectation

2nd and 1 for the offense? Sure makes sense to run. 3rd and 12? Yup, absolutely reasonable to pass. PROE measures how often a team passed the ball when we would “expect” them to run. Such as on 2nd and 1. Obviously, this is our expectation, and part of the strategy is to do the unexpected. So it’s not a perfect encapsulation. However, over 17 games, this gives us a general idea of how an offensive coaching staff envisions their offensive strengths.

4th Down – Go For It!

It’s kinda just what it sounds like. Unlike PROE, there’s no “expectation” to this stat. Of all 4th downs, this is how often a team chose to go for it. Higher rates mean an offense has more chances to accumulate fantasy points. Conversely, it’s not as great for kickers. 

Target GINI

This is where my background in economics comes out. Without going too far down the rabbit hole, Target GINI is how concentrated a passing attack is among pass-catching targets. A Target GINI of 1 means every target went to one player. Perfectly evenly distributed targets among players result in a Target GINI of 0. 

Rushing GINI

The same as Target GINI, but for rushing. So a Rushing GINI of 1 means one player had 100% of the rushing attempts. A Rushing GINI of 0 means every player received an equal number of rushing attempts.

“Ok, I get what GINI is, but how is it helpful for us?” You know, you’re really great with these questions. Are you sure you’re not a fantasy football expert? At any rate, these metrics tell us how concentrated or siloed a team’s passing and rushing attacks are. For fantasy, we’re looking for them both to be as close to 1 as possible.

Plays/Game: Offense

Literally just what it sounds like, this is an average of how many plays per game a team’s offense runs. The idea is that more offensive plays equal more opportunities for our players to score fantasy points. Simple enough, right?

While it’s good to know where they came from, the New York Jets are a completely different team in 2025. Stay tuned for all the wheres, whys, and hows.

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Top Performers (HPPR 2024)
Aaron Rodgers	QB15
Breece Hall	RB17
Braelon Allen	RB51
Garrett Wilson	WR12
Davante Adams	WR14
Allen Lazard	WR58
Tyler Conklin	TE19
Greg Joseph	K31

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Significant Offseason Changes from ’24 to ’25

Lost: Aaron Rodgers, Davante Adams, Tyler Conklin, Greg Joseph

Added: Justin Fields, Josh Reynolds, Harrison Mevis, Mason Taylor

Nothing went right for the Jets over the last two years, and they cleaned house this offseason as a result. New QB1 Justin Fields will try to re-ignite his career for the second time.

New York’s offensive line returns all starters except at RT, which rookie Armand Membou will likely man. How good or bad that is is up for debate. The interior of the offensive line was decent in ’24, but LT Olumuyiwa Fashanu struggled mightily. Perhaps a new coaching staff can get more out of him. Which brings us to….

Another coaching staff where the owner replaced absolutely everyone in the front office except themselves. HC Aaron Glenn brings an energy and optimism the Jets have lacked, and new OC Tanner Engstrand. Engstrand is a first-time playcaller who cut his teeth under Jim Harbaugh at Michigan before joining the Lions staff under Dan Campbell and Ben Johnson.

Looking Ahead to the New York Jets in 2025

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Lou’s Confidence Level 1 – 5
Justin Fields	4
Breece Hall, Braelon Allen	3
Garrett Wilson, Josh Reynolds, Allen Lazard	2
Mason Taylor (R)	1
Harrison Mevis	3

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Lou’s 2025 HPPR Rankings
Justin Fields	QB13
Breece Hall	RB17
Braelon Allen	RB55
Garrett Wilson	WR8
Josh Reynolds	WR78
Allen Lazard	WR101
Mason Taylor (R)	TE32
Harrison Mevis	–

 

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Week	Opponent	Expected W/L
1	Pittsburgh	W
2	Buffalo	L
3	Tampa Bay	L
4	@ Miami	L
5	Dallas	L
6	Denver	L
7	Carolina	W
8	@ Cincinnati	L
9	BYE	–
10	Cleveland	L
11	@ New England	L
12	@ Baltimore	L
13	Atlanta	L
14	Miami	W
15	@ Jacksonville	L
16	@ New Orleans	L
17	New England	W

Lou’s projected 2025 “fantasy season” record: 4-12

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OK, Now For the Important (Non-Kicker) Jets

“Lou, you didn’t rank Harrison Mevis!” Very astute, and you are correct. I’m a big believer in saying, “I don’t know,” when someone asks me about things I’m ignorant about. I’m kicker-dumb. So if you’re here looking for insight on kickers, I’m very sorry. Unlike last year, the Jets don’t have competition at kicker, so I have faith that Mevis will be kicking all year. Mostly.

The PROE and Rushing GINI stats suggest that this is an offense we’d like to target. The problem is, we throw both out thanks to Aaron Rodgers walking (Glenn ushering him?) out the door. It was an open secret that, OC/HC be damned, Rodgers ran his own offense at his own pace. So, trying to take anything into ’25 from how the Jets performed in ’24 is, sadly, a fool’s errand.

It might look like I dislike the Jets’ WR room, and while overall that’s true and I have no faith in them on the whole, I absolutely believe in Garrett Wilson’s 2025 prospects. Remember Fields’ last season in Chicago, when Equanimeous St. Brown was the “WR2”? I wouldn’t blame you if you don’t. My point is that this is the level of faith I have in the New York Jets’ WR2, WR3, etc.

This means, in turn, that there’s opportunity here for other pass-catchers. Rookie TE Mason Taylor has the pedigree and certainly showed pass-catching aptitude during workouts. My hesitation lies in the fact that Taylor is a rookie, and rookie TEs are notoriously slow to get up to NFL speed. I’m willing to believe that I’m too low on Taylor at this point, so monitor his performance throughout training camp and the preseason. Fields has gravitated to the TE before, and it’s not like there’s anyone else there.

Breece Hall and the RB room may help pick up the slack as well. However, Aaron Glenn has said repeatedly that they want to rotate and utilize all three RBs. For those wondering, a three-RB rotation is Not Good™. The days of Breece Hall dominating 80%+ of backfield snaps are gone now. It’s OK to shed a tear over it.

If There is a League Winner On The New York Jets, it’s…

Braelon Allen.

By the slimmest of margins do I lean towards Allen more than I do to “there are no league winners on the Jets.” Again, I go back to Glenn talking repeatedly about how multiple RBs will get significant work throughout the year. If we look at Tanner Engstrand’s background at Michigan, we see a backfield where multiple RBs got significant work, and Detroit obviously had their 1-2 punch in David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs.

So why do I still lean towards Allen as a league-winner? First off, that final three-game stretch of Jacksonville, New Orleans, and New England is about as soft as it gets. Allen is a big, fast RB who needs to play to his size and make better reads when running the football. Both are areas where RBs have the ability to improve. We can’t teach Allen’s combination of size and speed, on the other hand.

Deep League Draft Target

People seem to have caught on to the fact that Justin Fields’s WR2 doesn’t get much work. The Jets list Josh Reynolds as their WR2. And throughout all the early workouts, he’s living up to the billing. Reynolds may not be exciting as a draft target. That’s OK, though! They’re not meant to be “exciting.” If they even get to “solid,” they’ll be in good territory. As much as I have the Jets projected to lose in ’25, throwing the ball more often than running is reasonable. This, in turn, could result in more passes than we think finding their way into the savvy veteran’s hands.

With an ADP of 316 – I didn’t even know drafts went on that long – on FantasyPros, Josh Reynolds makes for a reasonable dart throw.

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Lou Brunson is a Senior Analyst and THE social media brains for Optimus Fantasy. Find his dynasty stylings on right here and at draftbuddy.com.