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The new league year in the NFL begins on March 10 when free agents can take visits from teams and discuss contracts.
The New York Jets currently have approximately $20 million in salary cap space, a number that is certain to go up once the team makes cuts to the roster.
It will be interesting to see how new Jets head coach Aaron Glenn and general manager Darren Mougey will approach free agency. Will they strike fast on the first day or wait for the smoke to clear and do their shopping on day two? And are there any of the Jets own free agents they want to bring back next season and beyond?
Jets Wire will take a look at each of the team’s free agents and determine if they should return next season or let them move on to somewhere else. For our next free-agent profile, we look at an under utilized weapon on the offense, linebacker Jamien Sherwood.
Sherwood was one of three fifth round picks the Jets made in the 2021 draft, along with Michael Carter II and Jason Pinnock. He was a safety at Auburn University, but head coach Robert Saleh envisioned him as more of a hybrid linebacker when he selected him with the 146th pick.
He only played five games in 2021 before suffering a torn achilles tendon in Week 7, ending his season. Sherwood is now heading into his fifth season and hasn’t missed a game since his rookie year. His numbers have improved with each season and he’s developed into a solid linebacker in the NFL.
Sherwood blossomed this past season filling in for CJ Mosley, who only played four games due to injury. He finished fourth in the league with 109 tackles and a PFF grade of 73.8, which ranked him 35th out of 189 linebackers. He was pretty consistent against both the pass and the run and was fourth in the league with 59 stops. Sherwood had some big shoes to fill as the mike linebacker after Mosley went down, but he was more than up for the challenge and was a major positive in an otherwise lost season for the Jets.
Should The Jets Bring Him Back in 2025?
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The Verdict: Yes.
Sherwood is one of the more surprising hits in the draft record of Joe Douglas. He just turned 25 years old and is exactly the type of player that Aaron Glenn would love to build his defense around. Not only did he seamlessly take over a very important role in absence of Mosley, but also showed plenty of leadership skills on a defense that badly regressed.
The Jets will have competition for Sherwood’s services as Saleh is expected to show interest now that he’s back as defensive coordinator in San Francisco and Jeff Ulbrich will try and recruit him for his defense in Atlanta. The Jets are pretty thin at linebacker heading into next season with Mosley’s future uncertain and Quincy Williams as the only other returning player at the position.
He’s another homegrown player the Jets shouldn’t let walk out the door. Glenn and Mougey will make Sherwood a priority when free agency begins and with the recent increase in the salary cap, the Jets will have money to spend and keep him in the green and white for the near future.