A staggering 503 points surrendered. That’s the ugly number the Jets defense coughed up last season, a neon sign for just how broken things got in 2025. The front office is now throwing veteran muscle at the problem, hoping experience can do what youthful energy couldn’t: stop the bleeding.
503 Points Allowed: The Embarrassing Benchmark
No sugarcoating here. Allowing 503 points in a single campaign is a disaster, plain and simple. Even Jamien Sherwood’s gaudy tackle stats, 154 last year after a career-best 158 in 2024, get drowned out when most of them came after the offense already gashed the defense for big gains.
Here’s how the numbers stack up for Sherwood since 2024:
| Season | Tackles | Jets Points Allowed |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 158 | (not specified) |
| 2025 | 154 | 503 |
On paper, the tackles look impressive. In reality, when the defense is getting shredded week after week, piling up tackles isn’t heroism, it’s triage. Sherwood’s extension after 2024 was supposed to signal progress. Instead, it’s been more of the same old misery.
Enter Demario Davis: The Culture Shock the Jets Need
Demario Davis arrives as the supposed antidote. He doesn’t mince words: he was brought in “to be a model of what winning culture looks like.” That’s the kind of statement that should make every holdover in the locker room squirm. After last season, they need to.
Sherwood isn’t hiding from the truth, either. His assessment is blunt: “We were a pretty young team, so when there were times where I felt like I did need someone to lean on or felt like I needed a little bit more of knowledge of something. I feel like for the last few weeks of OTAs and the offseason, like he’s been there. I would say you can feel his presence and it’s beneficial for everybody on the team, not just myself. It’s beneficial for our coaches having a guy like him.”
Leadership was missing. Davis is filling a void that’s been yawning wide since the first blown coverage of last year.
The Jets aren’t stopping there. They’re doubling down on experience, adding safety Minkah Fitzpatrick and defensive lineman David Onyemata to the mix. Youth movement over. Grown-ups in charge.
Will Experience Trump History?
Flashy stats from young players mean nothing if the scoreboard keeps tilting the wrong way. The Jets’ 2025 defensive numbers are a scarlet letter, and it’s going to take more than speeches and platitudes about “winning culture” to erase them.
Davis. Fitzpatrick. Onyemata. Veterans are being thrown into a blender with the holdover youth. The front office is betting that this cocktail will finally toughen up a defense that’s been softer than a preseason handshake.
Pressure is mounting. If Sherwood and the rest of the Jets defense don’t absorb what Davis is preaching, and if the point totals don’t drop fast, all the talk about “feeling his presence” will sound like empty PR spin.
Sherwood says Davis’s leadership is “beneficial for everybody on the team, not just myself.” After 503 points allowed, “beneficial” is the bare minimum. For a team that’s spent years as a punchline, anything less than a dramatic turnaround will be a failure, no matter how many tackles get racked up.
