The New York Jets are not only looking for talent, but they’re also curating a feeling: a certain kind where the team starts to believe in itself. It begins, as these things often do, with Geno Smith, not the version people once wrote off, but the one who learned patience the long way around.
His return in March reframed the offense. Now the question isn’t if the Jets will build around him, but how.
Why Omar Cooper Jr. Could Become Geno Smith’s Favorite Target
There’s something almost certain about the connection PFSN’s Ryan Moran makes in his latest mock draft: Indiana wide receiver Omar Cooper Jr. to the Jets at No. 16.
Cooper plays like someone who understands that football isn’t about open space; it’s about what you do when there isn’t any. At 6 feet, 204 pounds, he carries himself low and sturdy.
And once the ball finds him, things tend to get … complicated for defenders. 27 missed tackles in a single season don’t happen by accident.
“Offensively, the Jets need some pass catchers. Omar Cooper Jr., out of Indiana, seems like a possibility to be their selection. Cooper is a fast and quick slot receiver with great hands and terrific run-after-catch ability. He is very strong and can break tackles. Cooper could help address the Jets’ wide receiver position,” Moran wrote.
Cooper also slides neatly alongside Garrett Wilson, who draws attention the way gravity pulls everything inward: top corners, safety help, and entire game plans tilted in his direction. And in the spaces that he leaves behind? That’s where Cooper comes in: short routes, intermediate windows, and quick hitters that turn into something more.
Cooper, who has a PFSN Scouting Grade of 86.87, lined up everywhere at Indiana: outside, inside, and wherever the matchup asked him to be. At the next level, that likely translates into a power slot role, but limiting him to one label feels like missing the point.
He’s movable and useful in ways that don’t always show up in pre-snap alignments but reveal themselves mid-play, like when a linebacker is suddenly outmatched.
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And then there are the hands. They are not perfect, but they are reliable in the ways that count. He delivers on third downs, in tight windows, and on red-zone snaps where everything feels compressed and hurried.
Cooper, with 24 career touchdowns, has a way of tracking the ball as if it belongs to him and using his frame to make sure defenders never quite get a clean look at it. For a Jets offense that has, at times, stalled just short of the finish line, that kind of dependability carries weight.
