In the short time edge David Bailey has been with the Jets, he's been described as a dedicated, thoughtful and smart rookie. ... Most of the time, that is.
Across the board, Bailey, the No. 2 overall selection in the 2026 NFL Draft, has been praised by his coaches and his teammates for his thoroughly professional approach before playing in his first NFL game that matters. Like so many 23-year-olds, elite athlete or not, most have been known to experience a brain-fart or two.
"Well, he lost his car keys the other day, that is rookie like," said DT Harrison Phillips who like Bailey, earned a degree at Stanford University. "Small things."
Before decamping for his only season at Texas Tech, where he logged 14.5 sacks last year, Bailey played three years for the Cardinal. He left Palo Alto, CA, with a one-of-a-kind bachelor's degree in Science, Technology and Society. Phillips, no slouch himself, left with a sheepskin for a bachelor's degree -- a double major in Sociology and Science, Technology and Society (STS), and a minor in Education.
Phillips on Wednesday left little doubt how he feels about the young professional.
"If we leave the team meeting some guys are in special teams, some guys are not special teams," Phillips said. "So you might have an extra 20-30 minutes to go get some extra treatment. Are you going to scroll through social media? Are you going to go to the position room and cut on some film? And just in those organic interactions, every time I see him walking around, he only has an iPad in his hand.
"Weeks before that, he might have been looking at one-on-one rushes from the joint practices or studying another rusher in the league to watch his game. And so I think just those small things where I might walk past another rookie or another young player in that 15-minute window, they're seeing what Instagram's got going on and TikTok's got going on. And so just some of those things like that."
See the Jets players take the field for their last practice before game week.
At 6-3 (and change), 251, Bailey treats his body like a cathedral.
"I have a memory of one day going to the cafeteria, and it must have been after a really hard practice, and they're trying to reward us with some ice cream or something like that," Phillips said. "And him skipping over that because he's like, 'Oh no, I want to make sure that my body composition stays good.' When you want to be great in this league, football is an all-the-time thing. The sacrifice, every decision that you make, football is involved with it."
In his limited time on the field in the preseason, Bailey logged an impressive sack of QB Will Howard during the Jets' 17-0 win at Pittsburgh. In addition to "always being in the backfield" in practice, according to QB Geno Smith, Bailey showed strong run-stopping ability against the Steelers when he was able to string out a double-team along the O-line on the game's first play.
Nothing he's done for the Green & White has escaped the view of HC Aaron Glenn.
Asked on Wednesday what impressed him the most about Bailey, Glenn said: "His professionalism as a young player. He's here early in the morning getting his body taken care of, watching what he eats, making sure his weight stays level. Actually, following some of the veterans, following Double-D [Demario Davis], following Harrison [Phillips], following those guys, asking those guys questions [about] how they've stayed in the league this long. Listen, you don't get that a lot from young players, but he's a very wise man. I'm glad we have him. He's the type of player; he's going to be in the league for a long time the way he operates."
