The Jets, making their second choice of the 2025 NFL Draft, their first of draft night No. 2, and the draft's 42nd selection, overall, made another pick for their offense with tight end Mason Taylor of LSU.
Taylor (6-5, 251) couldn't have any richer bloodlines. His father is Pro Football Hall of Fame DE/LB Jason Taylor, who tortured the Jets on frequent occasions for Miami, then came north to One Jets Drive to play 19 games, including playoffs, for the Jets in 2010. And Mason's uncle is Dolphins MLB legend and fellow Hall of Famer Zach Thomas.
JT patrolled the halls of the Jets' training center only for that one season, but now Mason will call it his home office as he gives QB Justin Fields and the Jets a new weapon to train on the Dolphins and all their other opponents in '25.
"I'm fired up," Thomas told newyorkjets.com reporter Caroline Hendershot shortly after his selection. "It's exciting, an unreal feeling. I'm kind of still shocked, but I'm excited to go to New York and give this team all I can give with my consistency and my hard work."
So are the Jets. General manager Darren Mougey said late Friday that Taylor was "a tight end we've had our eye on. We think he can come in and really help us on offense. Young, athletic, really good ball skills, instinctive, has versatility."
"He could do it all," head coach Aaron Glenn said of the tape he watched of his new TE. "He can block, he can be a receiving threat. And it's knowing that his father's played in this league, being able to pour some of that wisdom on him."
The outside draft analysts like what they've seen as well. NFL.com draft analyst Lance Zierlein called Taylor "an ascending tight end with plus catch talent and Hall of Fame bloodlines." And NFL Network drraft analyst Brian Baldinger said on the Jets Overtime Draft Special on newyorkjets.com: "Mason's a big target, runs in the 4.6's, very smooth, great catch radius, soft hands. I don't think Justin Fields could ask for anything more from that position than Mason Taylor's going to provide."
Taylor was born in Plantation, FL, and built his football profile at TE and DE at famed St. Thomas Aquinas HS in Fort Lauderdale. He built his college career over the last three years in Baton Rouge, starting
Last season he cemented his billing as "the most productive tight end in LSU history," according to the Bayou Bengals' sports information department. He set the school season record for TEs with 55 catches, in the process becoming the only tight end in school annals with career totals of 100-plus receptions and 1,000-plus receiving yards. For his career, in 38 games he totaled 129 catches for 1,308 yards and 6 TDs. He finished his college career with a 28-game pass-catching streak.
He joins a Jets TEs room that lost productive Tyler Conklin in free agency but returns young veterans in Jeremy Ruckert, free agent addition Stone Smartt, and first-year players Zack Kuntz and Neal Johnson.
Taylor is the sixth LSU player drafted by the Jets and the second in the past three years following CB Jarrick Bernard-Converse in 2023 (Round 6, No. 204). First-round Tigers taken by the Green & White include RB Jerry Stovall in the 1963 AFL Draft (third overall, never played for Jets) and S Jamal Adams in 2017 (No. 6 overall).
The Jets have selected four players with pick No. 42 in their 66 drafts. The last three were Round 2 defensive players who each played 40-plus games for the Jets — LB Alex Gordon from Cincinnati (1987), legendary DE/DT Dennis Byrd out of Tulsa (1989) and LB Kurt Barber from Southern Cal (192). FB Bill Brown from Illinois was the only offensive player taken at 42, in the 1961 AFL Draft.
