Content available exclusively for subscribers
Oregon QB Dante Moore is returning to college.
Many had speculated that the QB-needy Jets would look to pick him with the #2 pick of the 2026 draft, after the Las Vegas Raiders are expected to pick Indiana QB Fernando Mendoza at #1.
Mendoza is considered by most to be the top QB in this draft. Time will tell if that is correct or not, but if would be a major upset if the Raiders don’t pick him first overall.
Many Jets fans are dismayed by Moore’s announcement.
Moore probably is making the right move. Anybody who watched Indiana’s recent blowout of Oregon in the college football playoffs could see that athletically gifted Moore needs more work.
He didn’t not have a very good game.
While Indiana has a good defense, they don’t have a great defense, and you would expect a QB considered a top-five pick, or perhaps a top-two pick, to show a little better in a big game, on a national stage.
So he could use another college season.
And these days, top college quarterbacks are getting paid well with the advent of NIL. Moore, with Nike’s Phil Knight writing big checks to pay players at his alma mater, is going to get paid handsomely to play for the Ducks this year, likely in the $5-7 million range, based on the going rate for top QBs in the portal.
Now there is a lot of speculation that Moore is going back to school to avoid playing for the Jets.
Recently, before Moore’s announcement he was going to back to school, draft analyst Todd McShay said on his podcast:
“Would you or would you not, as the representative of Dante Moore kinda reach out to the Raiders and say, ‘hey, my client is trying to make a decision – we can live with going to 30 of the 32 teams, maybe it’s 31,’ I can’t allow him to go to the New York Jets.”
Was part of Moore’s decision related to avoiding going to the Jets? Maybe, who knows.
Gang Green is coming off a rough season, and have missed the playoffs 15 years in a row. They have picked some quarterbacks high in the draft in recent years, Mark Sanchez, Sam Darnold, and Zach Wilson, and things didn’t work out particularly well for the team or the player in these circumstances.
So it’s possible Moore is trying to avoid the Jets. He’s likely not going to say that publicly, but you can’t rule it out.
It’s happened before – remember when Eli Manning wanted to avoid the San Diego Chargers when he came out of Ole Miss, and John Elway did the same with the Indianapolis Colts when he graduated from Stanford.
So there is precedent here.
McShay added: “I promise you no single player in this draft wants to be a New York Jet.”
Now that is absurd.
Aside from QBs at the very top of the draft occasionally looking to avoid certain teams, that is kind of where it ends.
How often do you hear of players, aside from an occasional QB at the top of the draft, saying they don’t want to play for a certain team? That happens as much as a solar eclipse.
So that comment from McShaw was quite hyperbolic.
Let’s say the Jets pick an edge-rusher like Arvel Reese or Reuben Bain at 2, and let’s say a QB like Ty Simpson at 16, the chances of those players complaining are remote.
Same with their two second-round picks, and the rest of their 2026 draft class.
But it is quite possible that part of Moore’s decision was related to who was picking two. That is’t meant to be a cheap shot at the Jets, just the point that it’s happened before with QBs at the top of the draft trying to avoid certain scenarios that they don’t consider ideal.
However, the bigger part of this equation is likely the money Oregon can pay Moore to stay another year, thanks to Knight, and, as we saw in the Oregon-Indiana game, he could use another year of development.
And time will tell if he did the Jets a favor.
He’s as raw as hell, and also might be a college system QB.
January 15, 2026
Premium will return by 9:30 pm (or sooner) on Friday.
