The New York Jets have been one of the worst teams in the league all season and it seems like they’re going to be closer to landing the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft than they will be to finishing the season at .500 or above.
At the trade deadline, the Jets opted to shock the entire NFL world by making a few huge trades. After trading cornerback Michael Carter II earlier in the month of October, the Jets opted to trade Sauce Gardner to the Indianapolis Colts and Quinnen Williams to the Dallas Cowboys at the deadline.
The Jets are clearly leaning harder into their rebuild than anybody seemed to believe they would. These two big trades likely set the team back an additional year or two, but it sets their future up quite a bit as they added a slew of draft picks. But the Jets need to fill the massive voids left in their lineup by these two star defenders.
Bleacher Report’s Kristopher Knox recently suggested rookie cornerback Azareye’h Thomas could be the Jets’ biggest breakout player down the final stretch of this season.
“The New York Jets are planning for their future, as evidenced by their deadline trades of Quinnen Williams and Sauce Gardner. With the latter now with the Colts, New York needs someone new to become a difference-maker in the secondary,” Knox wrote. “Azareye’h Thomas has a chance to be that guy. The rookie out of Florida State has started each of the Jets’ past two games and logged a pass deflection in three straight games.”
Thomas didn’t seem like he was going to get a lot of playing time this season as the Jets had Gardner, Brandon Stephens, Carter, and swung a trade for Jarvis Brownlee. But after trading Carter and Gardner, Thomas is being trusted in a much bigger role.
Thomas has all the traits of a potential star. He’s quick and athletic with solid coverage skills. He’s likely going to be trusted in a starting role down the stretch. The Jets should quickly be able to find out if he’s going to stick in the starting lineup long term. From what we’ve seen, Thomas has star written all over him.
There probably isn’t a person outside of the New Orleans Saints’ building happier about Tyler Shough’s performance than ESPN analyst Louis Riddick. During and after the game, Riddick let off a handful tweets endorsing Shough.
Possibly the most emphatic tweet included “f’n” and a whodat hashtag. Riddick came back the next day to repost Shough’s 52 yard pass to Juwan Johnson. It’s kind of funny to remember that Riddick used to play for the Atlanta Falcons, because you won’t find an analyst more passionate about Shough.
Riddick went on to predict what future analysis of Shough will look like. Riddick tweeted “there definitely will be those twisting their words like a pretzel trying to discredit everything good he does because of their negative bias. It’s already happening …” This may seem like a lot after just one win, but this falls right in line with Riddick’s well documented commentary on the Saints rookie.
A large section of the Saints fan base is going to have get on the Shough bandwagon. Not Riddick. There’s an argument that could be made that he is the conductor of the Shough hype train. Riddick has been praising Shough and his ability since before the draft.
In Febuary, Riddick went on the Rich Eisen Show and said Shough will be the steal of the draft. That’s a big statement when talking about quarterbacks. At that time, Shough was barely even being talked about.
On an episode of Get Up, Riddick boldly proclaimed that Shough was “the one.” Riddick highlighted the size, speed and arm talent of the future Saint, while quickly dismissing the injury history as unlucky breaks. The ESPN analyst when on to point out one of Shough’s throws by saying, “if that was Patrick Mahomes we’d be sitting here running it on Get Up over and over again.”
Riddick didn’t stop telling the world how good Shough was right there. On the morning of Day 2 of the NFL Draft, Riddick called Shough “maybe the throw-for-throw most talented thrower in this draft” before closing by saying Shough “will shock the entire NFL in 2025.”
Riddick has a long track record of unapologetically pushing Shough to the forefront of any rookie quarterback discussion. Clearly, Riddick is a huge believer in Shough. When looking at everything that’s been said, Riddick’s flurry of tweets could, in some ways, serve as a victory lap of vindication. It’s still early, but that never stopped anyone before.