Jets still making roster decisions ahead of cutdown deadline

With the preseason officially in the books, the Jets are less than 48 hours away from trimming their roster from 80 to 53 players.

New York will practice one last time on Monday before Joe Douglas and Robert Saleh get to work on shaping the squad that will travel to Carolina to take on the Panthers in Week 1. That last practice could be players’ last chance to make their cases.

“There’s a lot of spots that are close,” Saleh said Sunday. “I know Joe is grinding his butt off to try to find the fine line that determines which ones make and which ones don’t. These are the hardest parts of camp because you know guys have put everything on the line and you just want them to be successful. A lot of discussions remain between now and then.”

Unlike other teams who started making cuts immediately after their preseason finale, the Jets have yet to hand any of their players a pink slip. Douglas has already gotten a head start on fine-tuning New York’s roster, though, sending a 2022 sixth-round pick to the Texans in exchange for defensive end Shaq Lawson on Sunday.

The Jets are also currently No. 2 on the waiver priority list, making Wednesday a prime opportunity to convert another team’s trash into their treasure.

“It’s like a second draft,” Saleh said. “But it’s still a hard thing to do to claim somebody off another roster because of the amount of work you’ve put in with your guys. More often than not, you trust the work and you want to see them evolve, especially with the investment you’ve already put in. [Waivers] is a great game to play, but it’s a lot harder than people realize.”

With three preseason games, multiple joint practices and a month’s worth of practice at One Jets Drive to evaluate, Douglas and Saleh have all of the information to build an optimal roster at their fingertips. Roster decisions sometimes come down to more than just taking the 53 most talented players, but come late Tuesday afternoon, the Jets will have a squad that their brass feels give them the best chance to begin the regular season with a win.