NY Jets release former first-round pick Quinton Coples

After racking up 24 sacks and 40.5 stops for loss at the University of North Carolina, the Jets took Coples with the No. 16 overall selection in the 2012 NFL Draft.

Quinton Coples simply couldn’t fit in with Todd Bowles’ defense. He just got caught up in between that ‘tweener status for us.

“I’m not going to divulge that at this time”, he said, “but we do have something that we’re looking at”. So far this season, Coples has registered just 8 total tackles and zero sacks in the 214 total defensive snaps that he has played. In short, that’s very unlikely to happen and it will be surprising if any team claims Coples off of waivers for that very reason. His two fourth-quarter sacks in last season’s finale at Miami capped a seven-sack game against Ryan Tannehill and gave him a career-high 6.5 sacks for the season. While he played well on the defensive line for a few games last season in place of the injured Muhammad Wilkerson, Coples wasn’t much of an option there this season.

The Jets have a plan to fill Coples spot on the roster but haven’t revealed what those plans are.