Early in camp, there are no standouts.
It’s all about installing the playbook, teaching, developing chemistry and getting in football shape.
So take any media takes on who looks good with a grain of salt, especially since we don’t have access to the playbook and don’t always know what players are being asked to do on a given play.
But what you can see early in camp are “traits.”
And Jets rookie edge David Bailey, the second pick overall in the 2026 draft, flashed some impressive “traits” at Thursday’s practice.
He showed excellent first-step quickness for a 6-3, 251-pound athlete, which made him challenging for Jets offensive tackles to deal with at times.
Also, there were some questions about his ferocity in taking on blockers in run support, and he looked very aggressive stacking and shedding blockers on Thursday.
So you can see he has some very moldable “traits” for Jets defensive line coach Karl Dunbar to work with.
But remember, the Jets’ two camp practices so far were minus pads.
“He’s everything that we expect him to be, and it’ll be real exciting once we get the pads on,” said Jets coach Aaron Glenn. “I think we all understand through these acclimation days, we’re still in shorts.”
So we will certainly find out more about the prospect next week when the Jets have some padded practices.
But his “traits” look pretty good so far.
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