{"id":978496,"date":"2026-08-03T19:36:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T19:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/978496\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T19:36:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T19:36:15","slug":"brandon-stephens-knows-the-jets-defensive-focus-is-takeaways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/978496\/","title":{"rendered":"Brandon Stephens Knows the Jets’ Defensive Focus Is Takeaways"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephens has matched up against Garrett Wilson<\/a> and Adonai Mitchell<\/a>, the two receivers QB\u00a0Geno Smith<\/a> has targeted the most, and is enjoying the battle.<\/p>\n

“It’s been good. We’ve been competing at a high level,” Stephens said. “Iron sharpens iron.”<\/p>\n

Stephens signed with the Jets as a free agent in 2025 after starting his career and playing four seasons in Baltimore. When the Jets play the Giants in a preseason game later this month, he’ll face his former coach John Harbaugh.<\/p>\n

In his first year with the Green & White, Stephens played in 16 games, had 46 solo tackles and 9 PD, but ahead of the 2026 season, Glenn noticed enough of a difference in his game to call him “a totally different player.”<\/p>\n

“When I say that, it’s the awareness of where the ball’s at when it’s in the air,” Glenn explained.<\/p>\n

Against Mitchell in practice, he tracked the ball down the sideline and prevented the WR from hauling in Smith’s deep look.<\/p>\n

“I mean, there’s only one way to work on interceptions and punching the ball out, it’s by doing it in practice,” Stephens said when asked if the Jets are doing anything different during training camp. “Whether that’s in individual drills or team periods, just always being conscious of the ball, where it’s at, and just, like I said, capitalizing when the opportunity presents itself.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stephens has matched up against Garrett Wilson and Adonai Mitchell, the two receivers QB\u00a0Geno Smith has targeted the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":978497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[355392,5229,389287,144382,1370,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,20026,387911,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-978496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-2026-training-camp","tag-america","tag-best-of-ny-jets","tag-brandon-stephens","tag-latest-headlines","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-training-camp","tag-training-camp-features","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117033263835315540","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=978496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/978497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=978496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=978496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=978496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}