On the day after trading "two great players" -- CB Sauce Gardner to Indianapolis and DT Quinnen Williams to Dallas -- for a bushel of future draft picks and WR Adonai Mitchell and DT Mazi Smith, HC Aaron Glenn emphasized that things change, often fast in the NFL. And that leads to opportunity.
"I've said that to all our players, not just today but throughout this season, that this is a fluid game, and players come and go, coaches come and go," Glenn said on Wednesday. "But the one thing that I do know ... with change comes opportunity, and I think Sauce and Quinnen are going to have a great opportunity with those teams. But also I know there's a lot of opportunity for our guys here, too. So that's where the focus is for our guys."
Trading two players drafted by the Jets in the first round brought the team two first-round draft picks in the deal with Indianapolis -- one in 2026 and another in 2027 -- plus a second-round draft pick in 2026, and another first-round pick in 2027 from Dallas. The Green & White also added three players -- Mitchell, a second-round draft pick of the Colts in 2024; Smith, a first-round draft pick of the Cowboys (No. 26 overall) in 2023; and in a separate deal with the Chargers, CB Ja'Sir Taylor, a fourth-year pro for a conditional seventh-round pick in 2028.
Looking ahead to Sunday's game against visiting Cleveland, Glenn said that all of the Jets' injured players have returned to practice, in some capacity, though he wasn't certain who among the new additions, including WR John Metchie III (acquired from the Eagles last week), would be ready to face the Browns (2-6).
"AD Mitchell, Mazi, Ja, all those guys made it here," Glenn said. "It was good to get those guys into the team meeting, let those guys see exactly how we try to operate when it comes to everybody, in totality, to hear me sit up there and talk. I'm looking forward to getting them involved. I don't know how long it's going to take."
Parting with two popular and important players was not an easy decision, Glenn said, but the draft capital and players obtained simply made the transactions too attractive for the Jets to pass up.
"No one goes into this thing to try to get rid of players, especially good players like that," he said, referring to Gardner and Williams. "But when these things come across your table and you sit there and you talk about it and you get the type of compensation that you get, man, you really have to think about it.
"There's a lot of things that change. That's part of this game. Hell, I wish I would have stayed here my whole [playing] career, but things changed. And I talked to both of those guys and it was good to have those guys as Jets, but again, that's how this league is."
Glenn tracked back and echoed a line from the classic film "The Godfather," about an offer too good to refuse.
"If it's an opportunity to help you as a team, you take it," he said. He added: "You know, we listen to anybody that calls. That doesn't mean we act on it. Those are just two opportunities we acted on."
And addressing Jets fans, who have endured along with the players and coaching staff, past and present, Glenn vowed to stay the course and continue to build an enduring foundation.
"I want this to be a team that the fans are proud of," he said. "And I will still say that this is a team that the fans will be proud of. I will tell you this ... our guys are working. We're going to continue to work, so don't let go of the rope and just continue to watch us work."
