For the New York Jets, a franchise that’s two years away from being a year away – and this has somehow remained a perpetual state of affairs for the past 15 seasons, the NYJ last reaching the NFL playoffs in 2010 – Friday night’s Peach Bowl felt like an unmitigated disaster.
The Jets, who are still in search of a worthy successor to Hall of Famer Joe Namath nearly 50 years after he threw his final pass for the franchise, are scheduled to pick second overall in the 2026 draft. Their 3-14 record this season matched the Las Vegas Raiders in terms of ineptitude – though only the Jets managed to become the first team in league history to lose five consecutive games by at least 23 points apiece. Quite the exclamation mark − expletive mark? − to another sad-sack campaign, the latest without a postseason invite or even a New York Sack Exchange to at least seed optimism for the future.
But no matter. By virtue of playing a weaker schedule, the Silver and Black actually ‘earned’ the No. 1 pick by virtue of the league’s rules − and the right to select Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza.
The recently crowned Heisman Trophy winner had played like an NFL franchise quarterback facing Pop Warner competition throughout 2025. Then he thoroughly embarrassed the University of Alabama in the Rose Bowl before the Hoosiers routed Oregon 56-22 in Atlanta on Friday.
Yet while Mendoza continues to etch his 2025 season as one of the best in the history of college football while cementing himself as the prohibitive top pick of the 2026 draft, it had seemed like the Jets would be in line for a tantalizing consolation prize − namely Ducks quarterback Dante Moore, a prospect some evaluators believe might have more professional upside than Mendoza.
“Around the league, there’s a debate on who’s one or who’s two,” ESPN draft analyst Matt Miller told USA TODAY Sports. “Some people love Mendoza – pocket passer, super accurate, poised, never seems to get rattled. He’s more of a distributor – he allows his guys to go make plays. I think there’s a lot of people that see that and like it. He’s kind of Jared Goff-esque … or Kirk Cousins-plus.
“Dante, I think he’s a little more explosive, he’s a little more dynamic. … He’s really not quite as experienced. And so it’s more of an upside bet.”
But now? Doesn’t appear to be much room left for debate after Mendoza owned the Peach Bowl stage, while his team took down Oregon for the second time this season.
Meanwhile, Mendoza was once again surgical – repeatedly drilling the back shoulders of his receivers when he wasn’t layering touchdown passes to them. He finished with five touchdown passes … and three incompletions. (Between the Rose and Peach Bowls, Mendoza has eight TD throws and five incompletions – against defenses stacked with plenty of NFL-caliber talent.)
Said ESPN play-by-play man Sean McDonough at halftime, “I think the debate about who the number one quarterback is and who’s gonna be the number one pick in the draft has been answered.”
Responded analyst Greg McElroy, one of the many quarterbacks who couldn’t cut it with the Jets post-Namath: “I think it was established even before this. I mean, if you’re drafting Dante Moore, it’s on a projection. You’re getting a ready-made product right now in Fernando Mendoza.”
In fairness to Moore, he made some nice throws Friday, even if his 285-yard, two-TD night was ultimately full of empty calories. In further fairness to Moore, he’s 20 years old and has started 19 college games − the kind of relatively thin résumé that’s been predictive of failure for recent top-five QB selections like Mitchell Trubisky, Trey Lance and Anthony Richardson. Moore also looked like a deer in headlights at times. With the benefit of more time and nourished by more quality coaching, he certainly has the potential to be an excellent pro – though patience and quality coaching have been in fairly short supply with Gang Green since the Jets’ landmark Super Bowl 3 victory, famously/infamously guaranteed by Namath, to cap the 1968 season. (The Jets have never returned to the Super Sunday stage.)
In the decades since, they’ve picked passers like Richard Todd, Ken O’Brien, Chad Pennington, Mark Sanchez, Sam Darnold and Zach Wilson in the first round. All have been saddled with outsized expectations, few have had the benefit of a strong supporting cast, none have flourished for more than a handful of seasons.
Moore could be set up for a similar fate if the Jets, desperate behind center yet again more than a year after the failed Aaron Rodgers experiment, tab him. ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith even advised Moore to remain at Oregon in 2026 rather than play for the Jets, whom SAS deemed a “football atrocity.”
“That’s the Dante Moore dilemma,” said Miller. “It’s do you go for the sure thing of being a top-five pick, or do you go back to school and risk having a Garrett Nussmeier-type of year, where your stock kinda falls off?
“Who’s to say (the Jets) don’t have the number one pick next year? The Jets are always in the top five. If you’re running from the Jets, you just need to come out and say you don’t want to play for them.”
As well as Moore played in 2025, two of his worst games came in the losses to Indiana − an opponent sporting a talented, opportunistic defense, if not one as remotely good and complex as the ones Moore will eventually see in the NFL. He didn’t distinguish himself against Texas Tech in the Orange Bowl, either.
Meanwhile, Mendoza, 22, couldn’t have looked more composed or efficient in the biggest game of his life – at least until the South Florida native faces the University of Miami for the national championship on Jan. 19. Big (6-foot-5, 225 pounds), accurate, intelligent and perhaps underrated athletically, Mendoza appears like precisely the guy the Jets need – a winner unlikely to be derailed by the Big Apple’s scrutiny and distractions.
Yet, un-Raider-y as the clean-cut Mendoza presents, he’ll likely be avoiding the distractions of Sin City instead while trying to elevate that once-great franchise from the ashes – and with minority owner Tom Brady to monitor his professional growth and development.
As for the Jets?
Maybe they try to package some of their midseason bounty of high-end draft picks, acquired after trading Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams, to move up for Mendoza. Maybe they make a run at a veteran like Mac Jones or Cousins (a Mendoza facsimile without the wheels) and target Texas’ Arch Manning or Ohio State’s Julian Sayin in 2027. Maybe Moore “Ducks” the Jets entirely and winds up in an environment preferable to a “football atrocity” – you know, like in Cleveland or Arizona.
But it sure feels like Moore’s best play personally is to enter this draft, given the likelihood he’ll be close to a surefire top-five pick, rather than chance a regression ahead of what’s shaping up as a stacked 2027 crop. Better to take the Caleb Williams path and join an organization that might foster initial misgivings – while realizing circumstances in the NFL change on a dime, for the league’s worst franchises and its best (slot Williams’ Chicago Bears wherever you choose).
Regardless – somehow, some way – sure seems like the Jets now find themselves two years away from being two years away.
