For as long as anyone can remember, the AFC East hasn't been one of the most competitive divisions in all of football, with the Patriots dominating for much of the last 25 years and the Bills taking over once Tom Brady left for the Bucs.
The Dolphins and Jets have never come close to taking the reins, and that isn't expected to change any time soon. Despite massive changes to both teams, the Jets traded for quarterback Geno Smith, a reunion ten years in the making, while the Dolphins brought in a new coaching staff and moved on from Tua Tagovailoa at quarterback.
Those moves have their fans hoping for a better future, with New York fans, in particular, seeing a light at the end of the tunnel that may lead them to their next franchise signal-caller as soon as next year.
But there's a good chance they'd rather trade for an experienced quarterback instead, as Wynston Wilcox of FanSided.com suggests, and while it might be a decision the Jets deem right in the moment, their history doesn't provide much optimism that their fate will change.
Because of that, there's a good chance it will be another win for the Patriots in the long run.
The Jets make another regrettable QB decision that the Patriots can laugh about
It wouldn't be unfair to claim that Geno Smith is not the future at quarterback for the Jets and is more of a temporary fix than anything else. After the failed experiment with Justin Fields, the team decided to forgo the risk of selecting a quarterback in this year's draft and instead use their picks to boost the roster.
That could mean they'll decide to select one next year, as many analysts already predict. But if they'd rather go with someone who has NFL experience, perhaps they'll consider a trade for Vikings' J.J. McCarthy.
It doesn't look like he has much of a future with Minnesota, since they signed Kyler Murray after the Cardinals released him. By all accounts, he's likely the starter for the 2026 season unless McCarthy surpasses him during training camp and the preseason; if not, he could be on the move sooner rather than later.
It puts a team like the Jets into the mix, and if all it took was a 2027 fourth-round pick to get the deal done, as Wilcox proposes, there's no reason to believe they wouldn't be willing to do that as soon as possible.
From what McCarthy has shown thus far, it's difficult to see the caliber of quarterback he appeared to be while winning the National Championship with Michigan in 2024. Despite being surrounded by a fairly impressive offense in Minnesota, he wasn't able to succeed much last year, but the Jets might make the mistake of believing they could be the right change of scenery for the quarterback.
There's a chance they wouldn't be wrong, but history doesn't support that with the Jets, given their failed attempts with Fields just last year and Rodgers before that.
Given that McCarthy is younger and potentially more moldable, maybe they have a shot with helping him become the kind of quarterback they need, and if they could do it by sending a mid-round pick, then it seems like a win-win scenario.
But if history repeats itself, as it almost certainly will, the Patriots have another reason to be happy: the Jets are a laughable organization with no chance of becoming a legitimate contender in the near future.
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