Jets To Sign S Dane Belton

Giants safety defections in free agency have become commonplace, and with a new coaching staff now in place, another exit is on tap. But Dane Belton will not need to relocate. The Jets are picking up the fifth-year player, NFL insider Jordan Schultz tweets.

It’s a one-year, $4MM deal with a max of $6MM. The former fourth-round pick will follow Julian Love, Xavier McKinney and Jason Pinnock in leaving Big Blue’s safety corps over the past three offseasons.

Belton, 25, carved out a consistent rotational role in the Giants defense in his first two seasons and took on more playing time towards the end of his third year. That would have set him up for a full-time starting role in 2025, but Jevon Holland‘s arrival in free agency pre-empted that. Belton still appeared in every game with a strong 63% snap share and nine starts with both Holland and Tyler Nubin missing time due to injury.

Both veterans are remaining in New York under John Harbaugh, so Belton will switch locker rooms at the Meadowlands, likely to serve as the Jets. No. 3 safety. Minkah Fitzpatrick will take on a starting role after arriving via trade from Miami, and 2025 fourth-rounder Malachi Moore will likely start alongside him after an impressive rookie campaign. All three can line up as a free safety, man the slot, or play down in the box, giving Aaron Glenn and new defensive coordinator Brian Duker plenty of ways to configure their 2026 secondary.

Jets To Sign DT David Onyemata

The Jets remain busy in their defensive overhaul. New York is in position to add veteran defensive tackle David Onyemata to the mix for 2026.

The parties have agreed to terms on a one-year deal, Mike Garafolo of NFL Network reports. This pact has a base value of $10.5MM with $9.65MM guaranteed, Garafolo adds. Onyemata will play outside the NFC South for the first time in his career next season.

A former Saints draftee and Falcons free agency addition, Onyemata will turn 34 this year. While that $10MM-plus pact represents another nice payday, it is not on the level of his 2023 Atlanta deal (three years, $35MM). This is Onyemata’s fourth NFL contract, however. He also played out a three-year, $27MM Saints deal. While not exactly a household name, the Nigerian defensive lineman will surpass $75MM in career earnings via this contract.

As our top 50 free agent list showed, this was not a good year to need a veteran defensive tackle. Only one (John Franklin-Myers) appeared on the list, and his high placement (No. 6) was largely due to the lack of prime-years difference-makers available. The Titans paid up for Franklin-Myers (three years, $63MM).

Onyemata carries a different skillset, excelling more against the run. Last season, Onyemata ranked ninth in run stop win rate. ESPN’s pass rush win rate metric also ranked the 335-pounder 17th among interior D-linemen. The Falcons turbocharged their pass rush in 2025, rocketing back to relevance with 57 sacks — behind only the Broncos’ 68. Onyemata only tallied one of those sacks, but he recorded seven tackles for loss in a 17-game season. He notched 21 TFLs during a three-year Georgia stay.

Aaron Glenn is diving into his past with two of his additions today. Onyemata will join former Saints teammate Demario Davis. By season’s end, these ex-Saints will give the Jets a 37-year-old linebacker and 34-year-old D-lineman. With Glenn’s seat warming after a rough 2025, he will turn to former cogs he trusts to start Year 2 in New York.

Adam La Rose contributed to this post.

Jets To Add OLB Kingsley Enagbare

The Packers will be without Rashan Gary moving forward, and he is not the only edge rusher set to depart Green Bay. Kingsley Enagbare is set to leave during his first trip to free agency.

Enagbare has agreed to terms on a one-year deal with the Jets, ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler reports. This will be a $10MM contract, he adds. Enagbare and Joseph Ossai will represent new arrivals for the Jets in 2026, with the team moving quickly at the start of the negotiating window to line up deals in both cases.

Aaron Glenn added two familiar faces in aging ex-Saints Demario Davis and David Onyemata, while Ossai and Enagbare will be new charges for the second-year New York leader. Enagbare was never asked to be a regular Packer starter, but he did make 21 first-string appearances during his four-year Wisconsin run.

Totaling 25 tackles for loss during that four-year stay, the former fifth-round pick was used between 41% and 47% of Green Bay’s defensive snaps during those years. Working primarily as an edge defender, Enagbare totaled 15 QB pressures and two sacks last season. Despite Lukas Van Ness‘ presence, the Pack turned to Enagbare as their Micah Parsons injury replacement over their season’s final four games.

Green Bay will have a new-look EDGE corps, with Gary moving to Dallas and Enagbare Big Apple-bound. Van Ness has one season left on his rookie contract. Parsons could conceivably return by Week 1, but the Packers are traditionally cautious with injury recoveries. A stay on the PUP list would not surprise. The Packers will need some help at OLB soon.

The Jets are remodeling their EDGE cadre themselves, trading Jermaine Johnson. They are expected to pick up Will McDonald‘s fifth-year option, but with Johnson gone and Micheal Clemons unsigned, Glenn and GM Darren Mougey are bringing in their own hires to rush the passer next season.

Sam Robinson contributed to this post.

Jets To Sign OLB Joseph Ossai

Joseph Ossai will not return to the Bengals in 2026. The pass rusher’s first trip to free agency will instead send him to New York.

Ossai and the Jets have agreed to terms, NFL insider Jordan Schultz reports. This will be a three-year pact worth $36MM, Schultz adds. Ossai will receive $22.5MM fully guaranteed, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Expectations will be high for notable production off the edge in this case for 2026 and beyond as a result.

A third-round pick in 2021, Ossai spent his entire four-year career in Cincinnati. He had a part-time role through his first two years in the NFL but took on more responsibility in 2024. He finished that campaign with 46 tackles and five sacks while getting into about 50 percent of his team’s defensive snaps.

He started a career-high nine games this past year, finishing with 43 stops and five sacks. Pro Football Focus ultimately ranked him 70th among 119 qualifying edge defenders, with the site being most bullish on his run-stopping ability.

He’ll have a chance at a three-down role in New York. The Jets needed to add some pass-rush help following the Jermaine Johnson trade. At the very least, Ossai will contribute on third-down, but the Jets lack of defensive depth (and the team’s financial commitment) means he should see a full-time role for his new squad.

Adam La Rose contributed to this post.

Jets To Bring Back LB Demario Davis

Celebrating his 37th birthday earlier this year, Demario Davis has still managed to score a nice payday. The longtime Saints standout is returning to where his career began.

The Jets are reuniting with Davis, with NFL.com’s Tom Pelissero reporting the All-Pro linebacker agreed on a two-year deal worth $22MM on Monday. Davis will receive $15MM fully guaranteed. In addition to bringing Davis back to the Big Apple, the 15th-year linebacker will reunite with Aaron Glenn — a former Saints assistant.

Davis drew a Jets connection before free agency, as did ex-Glenn Saints charge Alex Anzalone. The latter has committed to the Buccaneers, so the Jets will inject considerable experience into their linebacking corps with Davis. The team has steadily chipped away at Joe Douglas’ LB corps, moving on from C.J. Mosley and not extending Quincy Williams (who hit free agency today). Davis will complement $15MM-per-year ‘backer Jamien Sherwood next season.

Spending eight seasons with the Saints, Davis has been one of the most reliable players at any position. The off-ball linebacker is a blitzing dynamo (45 career sacks; 31.5 in New Orleans) who almost never misses time. Davis, who soared to five All-Pro teams during his Saints run, has not played in fewer than 16 games in a season. He has missed just two games in 14 years, giving the Jets hope he can sustain his late-career form.

The Jets drafted Davis in the 2012 third round, selecting him during Rex Ryan‘s time as HC. Davis played out his rookie deal but returned to New York in 2017, being traded from the Browns back to the Jets. The Saints swooped in on the 2018 FA market and found a steal. A franchise known for linebacker icons found another in Davis, who played at least 97% of New Orleans’ defensive snaps in every 2020s season.

Pro Football Focus has ranked Davis as a top-10 off-ball linebacker in six of the past seven seasons, slotting him fifth even at age 36. By starting games in an age-37 season, Demario Davis will become the NFL’s oldest off-ball LB starter since London Fletcher worked as a 38-year-old starter in 2013. As Glenn aims to avoid being a two-and-done HC, the former Saints assistant will bring in a player he trusts to help the cause.

Jets To Acquire Minkah Fitzpatrick From Dolphins; S Agrees To Extension

Minkah Fitzpatrick will indeed be on the move again. The All-Pro safety is being traded from the Dolphins to the Jets, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports.

New York will send a 2026 seventh-round pick to Miami in return. Fitzpatrick was known to be on the trade market, and the Old Bridge, New Jersey native will land a new contract as a result of this move. Per Schefter, a three-year, $40MM extension has been worked out with the Jets. Mentioned as one to monitor, this move will reunite Fitzpatrick with new Jets DC Brian Duker — Miami’s pass-game coordinator in 2025.

Fitzpatrick’s existing deal was set to expire after the 2026 season. Notably, New York will be taking on the entirety of his salary for the coming season. Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald notes the Dolphins did not pay out any of the five-time Pro Bowler’s $15.6MM in base compensation for 2026. That reduces his Miami cap charge to $12.9MM and increases the overall savings the Dolphins will benefit from.

This differs from the arrangement the Dolphins needed to make in the Fitzpatrick-Jalen Ramsey trade last year, when Miami needed to pay down some of Ramsey’s salary. Fitzpatrick became a somewhat surprising trade pickup under those circumstances, and he expressed interest in a long-term Dolphins future. But he is now in a rather exclusive club of players traded by the same franchise twice.

The 2018 first-round pick’s Dolphins stints are now through after a season (stint two) and 18 games (stint one). Miami dealt the Alabama product after a rookie season spent primarily at cornerback, before watching him soar to the All-Pro level at safety in Pittsburgh. The same GM (Chris Grier) reacquired Fitzpatrick as a safety but was dismissed midway through the DB’s second run with the team. With a new regime in town, Fitzpatrick was being shopped earlier this offseason. A Jets team that finished the season without an interception will bite in a rare intra-division trade.

The Jets have three safeties — Andre Cisco, Tony Adams, Isaiah Oliver — unsigned for 2026, with Fitzpatrick set to join Malachi Moore as options for Gang Green. This is Fitzpatrick’s second career extension. His first reset the safety market back in 2022. After agreeing to a rework that did not include any future guarantees, Fitzpatrick secured those despite going into an age-30 season. The Dolphins, who are about to take on the biggest single-player dead money hit in NFL history (via Tua Tagovailoa‘s release), will get off an eight-figure-per-year AAV. Safety is now one of Miami’s many needs.

Sam Robinson contributed to this post.

2026 NFL Trades

The modern NFL features four clear trade windows. Early March, the draft, the late-August 53-man roster-setting date and the November deadline reside as the primary points trades occur around the league. As the NFL resides in window No. 1 for 2026, it is a good time to check in on what has already transpired on the market.

Excluding pick-for-pick trades, here are the moves NFL teams have made thus far in 2026:

February 26

March 2

March 4

March 5

March 6

Ravens nixed trade March 10, failing Crosby on a physical

March 7

March 8

March 9

March 10

March 11

March 16

March 17

March 18

Kyler Murray Eyeing Vikings; Jets Showing Interest

The Cardinals are moving on from Kyler Murray. A last-ditch trade effort is still taking place, but absent that, Arizona is prepared to release its longtime starter. Two usual suspects are on the radar here.

Vikings interest in Murray has come out at multiple points this offseason, but Sportsboom.com’s Jason La Canfora indicates the soon-to-be unattached quarterback would prefer a Minnesota deal. Though, the Jets will present a clearer path to a starting job.

New York has been connected to some lower-profile names, from Tanner McKee to Jarrett Stidham to Tyson Bagent; a recent report has now tied the team to a Frank ReichCarson Wentz reunion. That would certainly be an uninspired path for the Jets, who would seemingly be prepared to chase a 2027 first-round QB if Wentz truly became the stopgap option. But La Canfora indicates the Jets appear to be the team “most desperate” for Murray.

Murray, 28, will be looking for a place to bounce back, and ESPN.com’s Rich Cimini views the quarterback as unlikely to share the Jets’ level of interest here. The Vikings have elevated a few veteran quarterbacks’ stocks — from Kirk Cousins to Sam Darnold to Daniel Jones — under Kevin O’Connell, but they are still developing J.J. McCarthy.

Adam La Rose’s most recent PFR mailbag addressed the line the Vikings are attempting to walk in trying to upgrade at QB while still having hopes for McCarthy, and Murray throwing himself into that mix would be interesting. Jones passed on this last year, choosing a Colts starter path despite the Vikings offering more money. Murray, however, is a different type of free agent. The Cardinals are on the hook for his 2026 salary, making fit the priority as opposed to an offer. This is similar to Russell Wilson‘s 2024 market, when he signed with the Steelers for the veteran minimum (as the Broncos paid the bulk of his tab).

New Jets OC Frank Reich is also believed to be high on Jacoby Brissett from their time together in Indianapolis, Cimini adds, and La Canfora notes the Cardinals have received trade offers on Brissett — whom last year’s staff appeared to prefer guiding the offense compared to Murray.

The Jets have been previously connected to Brissett, who is tied to a two-year, $12.5MM Cardinals deal. Reich coached Brissett from 2018-20 in Indy. Brissett looms as a Cardinals stopgap option, and GM Monti Ossenfort signed him last year. But with Malik Willis and Jimmy Garoppolo connections forming, will Arizona be too attached to its primary 2025 starter? La Canfora also ties Garoppolo to the Cards, which will make a Brissett trade — as several teams are looking for starters ahead of a thin QB draft — something to monitor.

With Murray needing to show he remains capable of above-average play, his upcoming choice will be critical. At 5-foot-10, the former No. 1 overall pick will not be a fit for every offense. He certainly ran into obstacles during the back half of his Cardinals career. If he is not traded, enough Minnesota smoke has emerged to indicate there will be some mutual interest here.

As for the Jets, they have also been doing some homework on Tua Tagovailoa. The longtime Dolphins starter also has his 2026 salary guaranteed; both he and Murray are likely to be vet-minimum options in bounce-back scenarios. As of now, though, Murray is believed to be driving more interest than Tagovailoa.

Jets Could Add 2 Veteran QBs; Carson Wentz At Top Of List

The Jets need a quarterback. More specifically, they need a young, long-term face of the franchise, the likes of which they have lacked since Joe Namath.

But the 2026 draft class only has one high-end quarterback prospect: Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza, who is widely expected to be drafted by the Raiders with the first overall pick. A number of college passers decided to return to school for the 2026 season, leaving New York high and dry with the No. 2 selection.

The Jets would be best served by waiting until the quarterback-rich 2027 draft, in which the No. 1 pick will not be required to land an exciting young passer. In the meantime, though, they will need someone to pass the ball to Garrett Wilson, Mason Taylor, and Adonai Mitchell.

That ‘someone’ could very well be two players. The Jets could take a similar approach to their quarterback room as their stadium-mates did last year. The Giants signed both Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston in free agency – which did not stop them from trading up into the first-round to draft Jaxson Dart – with the intention of letting the starting competition play out without too much pressure on any one player.

Of the available free agents, new Jets offensive coordinator Frank Reich prefers a familiar face, per SNY’s Connor Hughes: Carson Wentz. The two worked together in Indianapolis in 2021 when Reich was the Colts’ head coach. He traded for Wentz despite his sharp regression in Philadelphia the year before, and the former No. 1 pick posted a resurgent season. The Colts moved on from Wentz the following offseason, though the split was driven more by the front office and ownership than by Reich and his coaching staff.

Geno Smith, who was released on Friday, is another option named by Hughes. So, too, is Jacoby Brissett, though he is still under contract with the Cardinals and they do not intend to move him. However, if Jimmy Garoppolo follows Mike LaFleur from Los Angeles to Arizona, Brissett could become available for the Jets.

The Jets have also been connected with veteran linebacker Alex Anzalone, but they are expected to have competition for his signature. They could then pivot to Micah McFadden, a 2022 fifth-rounder who started 35 games for the Giants in his first three NFL seasons but missed virtually all of 2025 due to a foot injury. The Jets have interest in McFadden, but so do the Giants, via both Hughes and ESPN’s Jordan Raanan. Depending on the state of his foot, the 26-year-old may need to consider a one-year, ‘prove-it’ deal, but interest from multiple teams could give him enough leverage for a better deal.

Offseason Outlook: New York Jets

As a Jets cornerback for the first eight seasons of his 15-year NFL career, Aaron Glenn intercepted 24 passes and earned two Pro Bowl trips from 1994-2001. Glenn is now considered one of the greatest corners in Jets history. On the other hand, Glenn is light years from being considered one of the greatest head coaches in Jets history.

In the wake of an unsuccessful foray into the Mike Vrabel derby in January 2025, the Jets turned back to Glenn 24 years after he last donned their colors. Glenn was coming off a well-regarded run as the Lions' defensive coordinator from 2021-24, but Year 1 as a head coach could not have gone much worse.

The Jets went 3-14 to extend their league-high playoff drought to 15 years. Their minus-203 point differential ranks as the second-worst mark since the league introduced a 17-game schedule in 2021. Gang Green's noncompetitive showing was still not enough to secure the No. 1 overall pick in this year's draft. The Jets finished as runners-up to the Raiders in the race to the bottom, severely jeopardizing their chances of finding a much-needed franchise quarterback this spring.

Owner Woody Johnson hired Glenn three days before he tabbed longtime Broncos executive Darren Mougey as his general manager. Looking for a starting signal-caller in their first offseason together, Glenn and Mougey added former first-rounder Justin Fields on a two-year, $40MM contract with $30MM guaranteed. The mobile Fields, who did not establish himself as the answer in either Pittsburgh or Chicago, flopped in New York. Glenn pulled him for backup Tyrod Taylor in a 13-6 loss to the Panthers in Week 7. A day after the Jets fell to 0-7, Johnson publicly lambasted Fields while calling Glenn "the real deal."

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