In an occasional feature, we briefly highlight any of the lesser-known players that make an unexpected impact during camp, preseason or the regular season.
Today, we focus on defensive tackle Payton Page:
What he did:
The undrafted rookie Page turned heads at practice on Saturday with his consistent penetration. The AP’s Dennis Waszak named him as one of his stars of the day, while other writers in attendance were raving about his contributions:
Brady Cook is keeping his bit of moxie going by hitting Gipson in stride on a “towards the sideline” type route. It was as “in stride” as could be.
Holy crap, this DTPayton Page is LIVING in the Jets’ backfield today. Who is he beating on all these plays? Leander Wiegand, G.…
— Robby Sabo (@RobbySabo) July 26, 2025
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Bump.
Page has been unblockable today.#Jets https://t.co/XCWAyEEQrh
— Nick Faria (@Nick_Faria1720) July 26, 2025
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Outlook:
Page is only an undrafted rookie, but it’s significant to note that he essentially had the most guaranteed money in this year’s UDFA haul. This typically means he would be more likely to stick around.
The Jets had an undrafted rookie (Leonard Taylor III) who made the roster and was a regular member of the rotation last year, although he probably would have been a healthy scratch for most of the year if Leki Fotu wasn’t constantly injured.
Now Page looks set to potentially push Taylor for his spot. There is room for both Page and Taylor to make it, although this would mean beating out one or more members of the veteran trio that was signed in free agency (Jay Tufele, Byron Cowart, Derrick Nnadi).
None of those three have a guaranteed spot, though, as they all just signed for the minimum. Right now, it looks like Nnadi has fallen behind despite having the most starting experience from this group. Cowart has had a quiet camp so far too, albeit that it’s still very early.
So far it sounds like Page is just dominating against backups but hopefully this is the first step towards earning reps against more established players and proving he can be a handful against them too. Of course, the pads are about to go on too, so we’ll see if he can keep up the momentum when that happens from Monday.
More on Page:
Here’s our in-depth scouting report on Page.