At this time last season, entering the Jets’ seventh game, Will McDonald IV was already in the middle of a breakout year.
He had already collected his seventh sack. Gang Green’s edge rusher reality — Jermaine Johnson’s season-ending Achilles injury, Haason Reddick’s season debut not occurring until Week 8 — allowed McDonald, a first-round pick in 2023, to flourish with the expanded role.
He talked about wanting to break sacks records — the Jets and Mark Gastineau (22), the NFL and Michael Strahan (22.5) — to noti.group’s Steve Serby in November, and at that point, those were within reach with his pace.
But after collecting a pair of sacks in Week 1 this season, McDonald has gone five games without recording a third.
McDonald still generated multiple pressures in all but one game after starting the year “on fire,” as head coach Aaron Glenn described it on Friday. Both Glenn and Johnson still think McDonald can rediscover his 2024 results.
“You don’t panic for one, and the thing is you just don’t go outside of your defense to try to make things like that happen,” Glenn said. “Sometimes you try to get him as many one-on-ones as you can just by utilizing several fronts that will get him a one-on-one, and the more you can do that, the more those sacks will come.
“We still have a long way to go as far as the season’s concerned and we’re still looking forward to him getting those sacks.”
Johnson told The Post that he views McDonald as someone who can “100 percent” still end up breaking sack records at some point. “He’s a freak,” Johnson said — someone who can do anything he wants on defense.
As Johnson watched from afar last season after his injury, he would tell McDonald that he still left “a lot of meat on the bone,” and McDonald agreed, Johnson said.
McDonald finished with 10.5 sacks but managed just 3.5 over the final 11 games. His start in 2024, though, made thoughts of rewriting sack marks seem realistic, and that was the case again when he dropped Aaron Rodgers twice in Week 1 this season — even if that potential started to fade over the month.
The Jets, though, still believe McDonald will get back to that point.
“I mean I think every pass-rusher should be striving for something like that,” Johnson said. “I think it’s kind of unspoken goal of all pass-rushers. … You’re not just going to be in this league because you think you’re fifth-best or you’re not going to be great.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
