Are the Jets and Marcus Maye Parting Ways?

Well. The Jets have done it again. They’ve refused to pay a good player. Letting another guy walk. Whatever you wanna call it. The franchise tag deadline has passed and the Jets and Marcus Maye have not reached an agreement.

Marcus Maye will still most likely play for the Jets this season on the franchise tag, but their future together is uncertain.

In hind sight, I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. And it sort of makes sense coming from Joe Douglas. He has particular ideas when it comes to building a team and Maye does not fit into any of them.

Short-term Cheap Deals

Douglas does not like to spend a lot of money on players. There has been a strategy with most of his signings aside from Carl Lawson and Corey Davis. His free agency strategy has been signing guys to 1 or 2-year deals and not guaranteeing a lot of money.

Unfortunately, if the Jets were to sign Maye, they would have to give him a multi-year deal and it most likely would not come cheap. Maye and his agent seem to be set on a price and it doesn’t seem like the Jets are willing to pay it.

The Jets had reportedly offered Maye 20% below what the tag amount is.

Source adds: Negotiations went south weeks before the tag deadline when the #Jets offered Maye a deal that had an APY about 20% below even the tag amount for 2021. Maye turned down NYJ's offer & had significantly more in APY and guarantees from multiple teams heading into FA. https://t.co/8vkKkdObiy

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) July 13, 2021

Joe’s Team

Another thing Joe has shown throughout his tenure as GM is that he has been slowly getting rid of the guys he did not draft or sign.

Multiple players such as Jamal Adams, Leonard Williams, and Sam Darnold (none of who Douglas drafted) have recently departed the Jets via trade and free agency.

Maye was drafted by former GM Mike Maccagnan alongside Adams in the 2017 draft. Because of this, I think Douglas is perfectly fine moving on from Maye.

Douglas is also a big fan of building through the draft. So my guess is that he will depend on drafting a secondary player in the next coming draft, where the Jets are once again loaded with picks.

Building from the Trenches

As I previously noted, Douglas has made himself vocal about drafting and signing guys that will help the team out in the trenches. Besides Lamarcus Joyner, Douglas did not spend any money on any defensive backs this offseason.

He has been noted saying that their new defense led by Coach Saleh will not rely heavily on their secondary. Rather, they will rely on their defensive line to get to the ball before the opposing QB can even get rid of the ball.

With the addition of Joyner this season, and the multitude of Day 3 defensive backs drafted this year, the signs continue to point to Mayes departure.

What will happen?

At the end of the day, I think Maye will play for the Jets this season. Most likely he will not be franchise tagged next season and will be a free agent.

Another option is that he requests a trade to a destination that will be willing to sign him to a long-term extension. This is what Adams did, however the Seahawks have still not signed blitz boy to a long-term deal.

Either way, I think the Jets will be just fine moving on without him. The safety position is very replaceable in my eyes.

-Tom D (@ThomasDiRusso on Twitter)

Feat. image courtesy of (Nick Wass/AP)

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