The news continues to skew negatively for Aaron Glenn and the New York Jets coming off a deflating loss to the Chicago Bears in Week 4, this time with Braiden McGregor.
“Jets DE Braiden McGregor tore his pec and now will be out for the season, per source,” ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported in a post on X, putting a dour final note on a situation that began during Sunday’s tilt.
McGregor exited the contest during the second quarter of the contest.
The Jets ruled him out before the midway point of the third quarter, his day ending with 1 total tackle in seven snaps.
McGregor, 25, is a third-year former undrafted free agent. A national champion at Michigan, he has spent his entire NFL career with the Jets. McGregor has appeared in 23 regular season games so far, tallying 28 combined stops and 1.0 sacks.
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He was a bargain for the Jets. NFL.com draft analyst Lance Zierlein projected McGregor would be a sixth or seventh-round draft pick in 2024.
“McGregor has good size and length for a stand-up rusher. Teams will like the frame and the toughness, but he’s not a natural knee-bender at the point of attack. There is room for better hand placement as a run defender and hand skill as a pass rusher,” Zierlein wrote ahead of the 2024 draft.
“Won’t overwhelm opponents with twitch or short-area quickness, so it might be important for McGregor to keep adding play strength in order to become a more willful challenger as a backup edge in odd or even fronts.”
The Athletic’s Dane Brugler also saw McGregor’s potential.
Brugler noted that it could taking some more refinement in “destructing blocks,” but that McGregor was an “interesting draft-and-develop target on Day 3.”
“His raw tools and upside remind me of Alex Wright, who was a third-round pick in the 2022 NFL Draft and has grown into a valuable role player for the Cleveland Browns,” Brugler wrote in his “The Beast” draft guide.
For a Jets team already battling myriad injuries, this is another significant setback.
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