Salary Cap Update: When will Darrell Jackson Jr. sign?

The Jets have now been able to sign all of their rookies apart from Darrell Jackson Jr. and have made a few minor signings while also waiving some injured players for whom they may need to account for some cap space. Let's investigate the effect this has on their current salary cap position.

Here's where they currently stand:

The NFLPA database currently has the Jets at $27,247,563 in available cap space. There are only nine NFL teams with more cap space than this right now.

The only recent move to have a tangible effect was the Tim Patrick signing, for which there is a 2026 cap hit of just under $2 million, including $1 million in guarantees.

As for when Jackson will sign, it looks like there could be a staredown for a while because he is right in the middle of a group of unsigned players who were drafted at the start of the fourth round.

Per PFT:

Bills General Manager Brandon Beane said on the team’s YouTube show that high third and fourth-round picks are encouraged by the players’ union to ask for contract provisions that the players in the previous round are getting.

Jackson has been participating during offseason activities both on and off the field. The rules with rookie contracts dictate that every unsigned rookie has a temporary one-year minimum salary tender in place so they can participate before they've signed. However, these expire before training camp so if Jackson isn't signed by then, it could be a holdout. You can probably expect the stand-off to last until then.

Once Jackson does sign, it will make a slight difference to the Jets' cap position but the increase will only be around $120K.

It continues to look like the Jets have plenty of room to extend players before or after the 2026 season with available funds to take on the contract of any difference-maker that becomes available via trade. Then next season, they should be able to carry over additional cap room to once again be active in keeping their core together and adding to it.