NFL Insider Drops MAJOR Jets Draft Update...

Last Saturday, the general manager of the New York Jets was in Manhattan, Kansas, watching their future number one quarterback. Darren Moogies was at the Oklahoma State game, talking with the team's offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, Sean Brophy. That quarterback is Drew Mestemaker, and he has 29 touchdown passes this season. At midseason, Dane Brugler of the Athletic ranked him the number one quarterback in the 2027 class. The Jets have three first round picks in this upcoming draft, and two of them currently sit inside the top six. And in this week's newest mock drafts, Mestemaker still doesn't make it to them. Mel Kiper's mock, Mike Renner's mock, and Vinny Ayer's mock all have the same team picking him in at number three, one spot before the Jets pick. That team is the Miami Dolphins, the same Dolphins who came into MetLife on October 25th and beat the Jets 28-25. So if the man the Jets general manager went to see is gone at three, which quarterback is actually walking across that stage in a Jets hat? Well, first, to answer that, we have to look at where the Jets sit right now. They'd pick 4th with the Colts pick from the Sauce Gardner trade, 6th with their own, and 13th with the Cowboys pick from the Quentin Williams trade. Only the Chargers, the Titans, and the Dolphins are in front of them. In the four mock drafts posted since November 7th, Miami takes a quarterback at 3 in every one. Three of the four times, that quarterback is Mestemaker. The same guy the Jets GM went to see. The Jets get within one pick of him, and the Dolphins grab him right in front of them. What lands with the Jets after that changes from mock to mock. Notre Dame quarterback C.J. Carr goes fourth to the Jets in Kuyper's mock on November 10th, and again in Renner's on November 11th. Today's Sporting News mock takes a cornerback at four, then grabs Texas quarterback Arch Manning at six. The only one that hands the Jets' Mestemaker a November 7th mock at NFL mocks, and he gets there because Miami took Darian Mensah first. Go back to the summer and it was even messier. An August mock at A-Z Sports had the Jets taking Oregon's Dante Moore at three. Moore isn't expected to play again this season, according to Pete Thamel, after Oregon's Dan Lanning ruled him out. So the November list is the one that counts. Carr two times, Manning one, Mestemaker one. Even back on October 28th, Josh Edwards' mock at CBS had the same shape. Mestemaker to Miami at three, Carr to the Jets a few picks later. The Jets don't decide which quarterback falls to them. Miami does. And after skipping the position, it's not optional. Because Sunday in Kansas City showed exactly why. This video is brought to you by Kalshi, guys. On Kalshi, there's a market on the 2027 draft right now. The first quarterback taken. As of today, it has Drew Messemaker at 77% and Darian Mensah at 24%. If your money is on a different name than the mocks, that's where you can back it up. Pick a yes or no. Put in your amount, and it shows you the max payout before you buy. And you can sign up today with the promo code DIGESTNFL. That's DIGESTNFL on Kalshi. Now, back to the Jets. The Jets led the Chiefs 6-0 after the first quarter on Sunday. They didn't score again after halftime, and Kansas City won 35-12. Kansas City outscored them 21-0 in the second half, and nobody in green needs to watch that tape again. Geno Smith went 18-32 for 165 yards with no touchdowns. He averaged 5.2 yards per attempt, and he was sacked five times for 42 yards. After the game, he said he was pretty frustrated with myself personally. To be fair to Geno, he ranks 15th among NFL quarterbacks in passing EPA this season, per NFLverse. That's a starter who can win you some games, not one who you build around for the next five years. And Sunday wasn't just one bad day. Geno completed 72.6% of his passes before this stretch and 63.6% over his last five games. That slide is a big part of how the Jets got to 2-7. Aaron Glenn didn't hide from it this week. We're not going to hide from the fact that we're 2-7. We own that. Glenn also says the team is, quote, right on the cusp of trying to break through, with five of their losses coming in one-score games. Glenn also said on November 9th, before the deadline passed, that, quote, right now we're going to stay pat. So Geno, as we know now for sure, isn't going anywhere this season. He's more likely to be back in 2027 than traded in the offseason, according to Zach Rosenblatt of The Athletic. The same report says the Jets aren't handing the last eight games to rookie Cade Klubnik either. Geno is the bridge. The quarterback who takes the Jets past him is still playing on Saturdays. That's why the 2027 draft matters more to this team than anything left on the 2026 schedule. And why the name the mocks keep giving them deserves a real look. Look, CJ Carr is in his second season as Notre Dame's starting quarterback. He has 21 touchdown passes this season, already close to the 24 he threw in all of last year's games. He's completing 67.6% of his passes, right next to Messemaker's 66.7%. Carr has, quote, elevated himself this season, in Kuyper's words. Kuyper's mock and Renner's mock landed him day one, both. So, the bigger reason is what the Jets already have around the quarterback position. Kuyper's pick puts Carr next to Garrett Wilson, Omar Cooper Jr., and Mason Taylor. A perfect fit for a Jets offense that is currently overflowing with pass catchers is how Mike Renner put it at CBS. The doubt is the production. Carr has 2,168 passing yards this season. Mestemaker has 2,962. That's 794 more yards for the quarterback Miami keeps taking first. Put Carr, Manning, and Mestemaker side by side, and Mestemaker wins the yards and the touchdowns, with Carr still the name the mocks land on at four. Carr at four is the answer that's left once the Dolphins take theirs, and right now that makes him the favorite. If you want to follow this all the way to draft night, guys, hit the subscribe button. Right now we're at just over 8,190 subscribers, and a lot of you watching every day haven't hit the button yet. Carr isn't the only quarterback that the Jets could be looking at with picks 4 and 6. Arch Manning has 2,024 passing yards and 18 touchdowns this season at Texas. He goes 6th to the Jets in Vinny Iyer's mock at the Sporting News. With the line, the Jets should be dreaming of another Manning winning multiple Super Bowls in New York. He threw for 3,163 yards last season, so he needs a big finish just to match it. Wait until 6, though, and Philadelphia picks in between. Renner has the Eagles taking Manning at 5, one pick before the Jets own. Renner's mock has five quarterbacks gone by 16, with Trinidad Chambliss to Arizona at 9 and Dante Moore to Cleveland at 16. Miami and Arizona both need a long-term answer at the position, and both pick close to the Jets at 3 and 9. If the Jets want Manning, they probably have to spend the fourth pick on him. Not the sixth, and that might mean passing on Carr. Then there's the domino at three. Darian Mensah moved from Duke to the Miami Hurricanes this year, and he's completing 76.8% of his passes. At about the halfway point of the season, PFF had him at 22 touchdown passes and one interception. The worry is pressure. PFF graded him 46.9 when pressured last season against 92.6 from a clean pocket. Two numbers that sell him, one that scares you. And it's still enough for Miami to take him at three in one of the mocks. In the NFL mocks version, Miami takes Men's side three and Messedamaker falls straight to the Jets at four. That's the only road in these mocks where the Jets get Mestemaker without trading up for him. Unless the Jets go and get him themselves. They've made this exact move before. In March 2018, the Jets sent the 6th pick and 3 2nd round picks to the Colts to move up to 3. They used that pick on Sam Darnold. That's 4 picks to move up 3 spots. For a quarterback the Jets were sure about. The Jets later traded Darnold to Carolina for 3 draft picks. Less than they paid to get him. That's the catch with a trade-up, guys. The price only works if you're actually right about the quarterback that you're trading up for. In 2027, the Jets own the sixth pick again, and this time they have two more first-rounders to throw in. Mestemaker threw 34 touchdown passes at North Texas last season, then followed his coach Eric Morris to Oklahoma State. He already has 29 this season with games still to play. And the Jets' GM was at his last game on Saturday, talking with Oklahoma State's quarterbacks coach. Moochie has three firsts to spend, and nobody has to tell him how 2018 ended. The order can still move too, and the Colts' record matters just as much as the Jets', because their pick is the one at four. Every Colts' loss from here keeps the Jets' best shot at a quarterback inside the top five. Then there's Miami. The Jets play the team in front of them on November 29th in Miami. Miami is currently 1-7, a game behind the Jets right now, and that day could flip who picks first. The call? CJ Carr is currently the most likely Jets quarterback on draft day. As the mocks who the Jets get at four, right now the answer is overwhelmingly Carr. Why? Because Miami at three right now is overwhelmingly likely to take Drew Mestemaker, and in three of the four mocks that we've looked at, they do exactly that. So Carr is the pick in Kuypers and Renners. The doubt here There's 2,168 passing yards for CJ Carr versus 2,962 for Drew Mestemaker. Mestemaker only if Miami goes Mensa or the Jets trade up like 2018. That's the only situation. In which the Jets currently as constituted with these numbers and with these draft slots would get their Oklahoma State guy. Now what we need to watch for is the game versus the Dolphins on November 29th and also where the Indianapolis Colts pick lands. Carr, Manning, Mestamaker, or Mensah. Which quarterback do you want the Jets to draft? Tell me in the comments and I'll see you in the next one.