Tuesday Whispers – Mougey Speaks – A few takeaways . . .

In the 2026 NFL draft, there are 257 picks, including the natural slots and all the supplemental picks.

Darren Mougey said today the Jets have 225 players ranked as draftable players, but only 135-40 “live cards,” as he put it. In other words, 135-140 cards of players whom they feel truly comfortable drafting. Some of the draftable players either aren’t system fits for them or have medical issues that make them a risk in the Jets’ worldview.

The Jets have five picks within that top 140, so theoretically, they could get all the players on their board in the first four rounds.

• Round 1: Pick 2 (2)
• Round 1: Pick 16 (16) – From Colts
• Round 2: Pick 1 (33)
• Round 2: Pick 12 (44) – From Cowboys
• Round 4: Pick 3 (103)
• Round 4: Pick 40 (140) – Compensatory Selection

After that 140 mark, they have only three picks:

• Round 5: Pick 39 (179) – Compensatory Selection
• Round 7: Pick 12 (228) – From Cowboys via Bills/Raiders
• Round 7: Pick 26 (242) – From Bills via Browns

So some of those picks could be challenging, or perhaps not.

First of all, if they feel the need to grab one of their 140, they can always use their later picks to trade up. Also, every team’s draft board isn’t the same, so there will likely be players from their list still available when they pick in the fifth and seventh rounds.

Or if you don’t like anybody left in the later rounds, they could trade a pick(s) for a future pick.

But, interestingly, Mougey used that number 140 to say how many draftable players the Jets have, since their second pick in the fourth round is right at 140.

Mougey’s press briefing today was very brief, but every time we talk to the guy, you can tell, he’s very bright, and his current job isn’t too big for him, after paying his dues in the Denver organization for 13 years, working his way up the food chain with five promotions over his time with the Broncos, starting as an intern and working his way up to assistant GM.

Somebody who can be a great help to the Jets in their draft prep and war room this year is the team’s new OC, Frank Reich, who coached Stanford last year in the ACC.

He faced a lot of players in the draft as the Cardinal coach. The team’s on Stanford’s schedule last year included Miami and Notre Dame, two programs with a lot of prospects.

I asked Mougey about Reich’s insight in the meetings about college players coming from that world.

“He’s been great,” Mougey said. “That’s a good point, I’m glad you brought that up because he has. We have had conversations about several of these players in the draft that he faced or was around personally, and that’s been unique, and that’s been cool.”

We mentioned yesterday that Reich has good insight on David Bailey, who was at Stanford from 2022-24. Reich’s defensive line coach at Stanford, Ross Kolodziej, coached Bailey with the Cardinal in 2023-24. Kolodzieg is now at Northwestern, but it’s interesting who the new Cardinal D-Line coach is. It’s Jamey Mosley, C.J. Mosley’s younger brother, who was in Jets camp as a defensive end in 2021.

But getting back to the Jets draft, listening to Mougey today talking about cancelling Bailey’s visit to Florham Park, he was very believable when saying it’s not a factor in whether the team likes the defensive end or not.

“I’ll say this, with top-30s, every team uses them differently and has different ways of using that mechanism,” Mougey said. “Some don’t even use the top-30s at all, right? I would say, for us, when we do top-30s, every single player and case is different. Sometimes I want this player to meet with our player engagement department, sometimes I want this player to meet with our sports performance, sometimes it’s purely medical, sometimes it’s a recruiting process, sometimes it’s a smokescreen. And in regards to David, we had good touchpoints with him at the Combine. We went to his Pro Day and had a good dinner with him, and we were just kind of juggling our 30 and how to use them, and I
wouldn’t look too much into a cancellation, because there were other ones that we may have changed as well.”

This isn’t just GM-speak. Don’t read too much into these visits.

If I were a GM, my only concern with Bailey with the second pick is this: At Stanford, he had 14.5 sacks in three years, and at Texas Tech last year, he had 14.5 sacks. The Stanford program has been down for a few years, so they didn’t have a great supporting cast, and with the extra blocking attention Bailey got there, his production was pedestrian. At Texas Tech, a defensive line that Cody Campbell spent a lot of money on, with three other players who will likely get drafted, Bailey had a great year. It was hard to double anybody on that line.

This might not mean a darn thing, but just something to chew on.

April 21, 2026