I was pretty critical when we made the late round swaps for Briggs, Phillips, Brownlee, etc. but damn these guys have punched above their weight class. And they play hard as fuck. They all seem genuinely excited to play here and for Glenn. That’s awesome.
Stephens only had two bad games as a Jet. Unfortunately you only get one chance to make a 1st impression, so people will always remember he started slow, but frankly the whole defense sucked in the 1st two games. Overall though he played 2 bad games out of 12, which is excellent. Good last 10 games in a row, including a few as CB1. In aggregate Stephens has been every bit as good as DJ Reed was for us in 2024 or better, and he is younger. And we have him locked for two more years for what looks like a bargain now compared to production. This was a really good signing. We must give AG and Mooge a lot of credit for this one. Coming off Baltimore, which is known for their defense, it did not make too much sense that he would do a lot better here, but he did. Maybe AG knows a thing or two about CBs after all
Reed is having a rough year after a hot start, ironically for the Lions. Stephens has been better than Reed this year and most years Reed was with us although some of those were injury-plagued (and 2022 he was lights out to be fair). Wild wild turnaround when you consider Stephens was also bad with the Ravens.
