The 2026 regular season has not kicked off, and already the New York Jets are being mapped into next April’s quarterback market. In a 2027 NFL mock draft published Thursday, ClutchPoints writer Tim Crean slotted Ohio State’s Julian Sayin to the Jets at No. 3 overall, using Tankathon order projections that currently put Arizona first and Miami second.
That is not a report of a draft decision. It is one analyst’s early board, posted the same week college football opens Week 0 and two weekends before the NFL’s regular-season start on Sept. 9, per FOX Sports. The pick still lands because it matches how New York has been built: a veteran starter on a short leash, a rookie backup, and three first-round tickets in 2027.
Why Sayin sits in that range
Sayin, listed at 6-foot-1 and 214 pounds on the Ohio State roster, threw for 3,610 yards, 32 touchdowns and eight interceptions in 2025. He completed 77.0 percent of his passes, a single-season Buckeyes and Big Ten record and the third-highest mark in FBS history. He finished as a Heisman Trophy finalist after a 12-0 regular season.
Crean treated that tape as the floor, not the finish line. “If he builds on last year’s success, he’s a top-three pick,” Crean wrote in the ClutchPoints mock. The same note warned that a stall could send him down the board the way Garett Nussmeier, Drew Allar and Cade Klubnik slid a year ago.
That last name matters in Florham Park. The Jets drafted Klubnik in the fourth round of the 2026 draft after trading up, and the club has said publicly that Geno Smith is the 2026 starter, according to the team’s official site. Smith is back in green after a decade away. Klubnik is the developmental piece. Neither profile closes the door on a 2027 first-round quarterback if the season goes sideways.
The Athletic has framed Sayin as accurate and efficient rather than a physical outlier, ranking him among the top returning quarterbacks while noting late-season playoff drops against Indiana and Miami. That is the scouting split NFL teams will spend the next eight months arguing over: elite ball security in a loaded offense versus questions about size, arm talent and what happens when Ohio State’s supporting cast is stripped away.
Three first-round picks change the math
Crean did not stop at Sayin. He also sent Texas wide receiver Cam Coleman and Oklahoma defensive lineman David Stone to New York later in Round 1 — Coleman at No. 13 via Indianapolis and Stone at No. 16 via Dallas, per the same mock.
The extra capital is real even if those specific names are not. The Jets hold their own 2027 first-rounder, the Colts’ first-rounder from the Sauce Gardner trade, and a first-round pick tied to the Quinnen Williams deal with Dallas that involves the more favorable Cowboys or Packers selection, as outlined by NBC Sports and Sports Illustrated. Three first-round picks do not require a 3-14 encore to get a quarterback. They do give general manager Darren Mougey room to stay put, trade up, or spend the board on weapons if Smith and Klubnik hold the job.
| Pick (Crean mock) | Team | Player | Pos., school |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arizona | Dante Moore | QB, Oregon |
| 2 | Miami | Arch Manning | QB, Texas |
| 3 | Jets | Julian Sayin | QB, Ohio State |
| 6 | Las Vegas | Jeremiah Smith | WR, Ohio State |
| 13 | Jets (via Colts) | Cam Coleman | WR, Texas |
| 16 | Jets (via Cowboys) | David Stone | DL, Oklahoma |
Other boards do not match this one. A way-too-early PFF mock had Sayin first overall to Arizona and Dante Moore to the Jets at No. 3. A separate ESPN projection summarized Thursday by the South Florida Sun Sentinel sent Notre Dame’s CJ Carr to New York at No. 3. The disagreement is the point. The 2027 quarterback tier is crowded, and Sayin’s stock still has a full college season to move.
Jeremiah Smith, widely viewed as the top receiver in the sport, goes sixth to the Raiders in Crean’s board. That leaves Coleman as the consolation prize in a Jets room that already includes Garrett Wilson, Adonai Mitchell and 2026 first-rounder Omar Cooper Jr. Pairing Sayin with another first-round wideout is tidy mock-draft storytelling. It is also how rebuilding staffs try to give a young passer a cleaner first read than New York’s recent quarterbacks ever got.
What this does — and does not — say about 2026
Putting the Jets third in a preseason order is a projection of another losing year, not a confirmed finish. Crean said as much. The Cardinals and Dolphins sit ahead of them on that Tankathon snapshot, and none of those records exist yet. New York went 3-14 in 2025 and opens the regular season on the road against Tennessee. Head coach Aaron Glenn is entering Year 2. The offense added tight end Kenyon Sadiq and Cooper in the first round last spring.
The scheme question is simpler than the mock. If Smith keeps the offense on schedule, those three first-rounders become trade chips or complementary pieces. If the passing game stalls again, the Jets will not need a mock draft to tell them they are back in the quarterback line. Sayin’s 2026 tape — especially how he handles pressure and late-down throws without Jeremiah Smith winning every 50-50 ball — will decide whether No. 3 is a reach, a bargain, or a name that slides to 13.
College football starts now. The NFL season starts in two weeks. The 2027 draft is still eight months away. The only confirmed fact Thursday is that one early mock already has the Jets taking another swing at the position that has defined the franchise for a generation.
