The New York Jets unveiled their epic new Nike Rivalries jerseys for the 2025 season on Thursday morning, and these new threads have got the fanbase excited. But that’s not all the team revealed this morning as they also named their team captains for the year: three on offense, two on defense, and one for special teams.
The list went mostly the way that one would expect. The quarterback, Justin Fields, will wear a captain’s ‘C’ on his jersey, as most quarterbacks do, along with superstar receiver Garrett Wilson and three-time Pro Bowler Quinnen Williams. These were arguably the biggest no-brainers to name team captain.
There was one name omitted, however, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. In addition to Williams, the other defensive team captain is not the two-time All Pro cornerback Ahmad “Sauce” Gardner. Rather, it is linebacker Jamien Sherwood.
Introducing our 2025 team captains
— New York Jets (@nyjets) August 28, 2025
🫡📰: https://t.co/LqA13xG4iK pic.twitter.com/PQv3bGX3Ms
Granted, Sherwood had a breakout season in 2024 with a league-leading 98 solo tackles, including 12 at or behind the line of scrimmage. He’s a proven veteran that the young players can look up to, which is why the Jets recently re-signed him to a three-year, $45 million contract extension.
In spite of all that, I’m having trouble seeing how he has earned a team captain spot over Gardner, a guy who got off to one of the hottest starts we’ve ever seen. His 2024 season, a down-year for Gardner, would be a career-year for most other cornerbacks and he has the accolades to back it up.
One has to hope that this isn’t a sign of how Gardner is viewed in the locker room, whether his teammates don't see him as a leader of men. We don’t know that and honestly we have not even the slightest indication of that being the case, but not making your two-time All-Pro cornerback a team captain seems to defy logic.
Fortunately, which player wears a ‘C’ on gameday isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things. As long as the team goes out there and performs well after a disappointing 2024 season, the team captains won’t even have much leading that needs to be done. The Jets have bigger fish to fry, like figuring out how they're going to end their 14-year playoff drought sooner than later.