Through the summer, we will be counting down the Jets roster player by player. We continue the series by discussing Arian Smith.
Name: Arian Smith
Number: 82
Year With Jets: 2nd
Projected Role: Depth wide receiver and special teams coverage player
His 2025: The Jets selected Smith with a high fourth round pick in the NFL Draft. I personally was shocked by the selection. There wasn’t much obvious to suggest that Smith should have been anything higher than a priority undrafted free agent. He didn’t have much production
in college. He was undersized, and his game was unrefined. Other than timed straight line speed, there weren’t many obvious pluses that Smith was bringing to the table.
Sometimes a team seemingly reaches but strikes gold because it knows something the general public doesn’t.
If this was the case with Smith, it didn’t reveal itself in year one. The Jets had an offense with nothing proven at receiver aside from Garrett Wilson, who missed half the season with injury. The ground was fertile for a young player to step up and show he belonged.
Smith managed only 7 receptions all season long for 52 yards. Perhaps most ominously, he lost playing time after the team acquired Adonai Mitchell and John Metchie near the trade deadline. It’s one thing to lose snaps to Mitchell who had flashes. But it can’t be a good sign for Smith that he rated lower than Metchie on the depth chart considering the team passed on bringing Metchie back on a cheap contract.
After the addition of Omar Cooper in the NFL Draft, there doesn’t seem to be a path for Smith to see many snaps on offense. Even using his speed for manufactured touches in space is likely off the table. The Jets have Isaiah Williams for that.
2026 will be a success if: Smith develops into a special teams ace.
I think you have to get past the way Arian Smith was acquired. Everything we have seen both before and since the 2025 NFL Draft suggests the Jets reached massively picking him at 110th overall. He is unlikely to ever justify that slot. Barring a string of injuries at wide receiver, he probably won’t get more than a handful of snaps on offense.
Where he can help the Jets potentially is on special teams. He was by all accounts and excellent gunner on punt coverage in college. The trade of Irv Charles to the Seattle Seahawks takes Smith’s top competitor for that spot away.
While Smith is unlikely to make much of an impact on offense, the Jets showed a preference last year for special teams standouts filling their last few roster spots. That could be Smith’s ticket to make a contribution. I don’t think he’s a lock to make the team by any stretch of the imagination, but at this point I would make him a slight favorite to earn that job.
Odds of making the roster: More Likely Than Not (51-75%)
