The Jets, with their first pick of the 2025 NFL Draft, and the first of the new regime of head coach Aaron Glenn and general manager Darren Mougey, selected Missouri tackle Armand Membou with the seventh overall pick Thursday night.

“It’s just a big relief and definitely a blessing,” Membou told newyorkjets.com reporter Caroline Hendershot shortly after he was selected, adding that when he woke up the morning of the draft, he just had a feeling that at night he would be a Jet. “I guess God told me,” he said, “plus the Jets have a really young, promising team. I thought that would be a good fit for me, too.”

It’s the second consecutive draft in which the Jets spent their Round 1 pick on a tackle after taking Penn State LT Olu Fashanu 11th overall a year ago.

The Jets’ new brain trust was also exceedingly happy with their lucky seventh pick.

“We feel really good about the way the board fell,” Mougey told reporters later in the first round. “We always adnired him on film, we knew he’d be a physical fit. He was here on his 21st birthday [last month] and last week we had a few really good phonecalls. … And he’s a kid who’s comfortable in his own skin, he’s got a good personality. All of it was just a natural fit for us.”

“Athletically, he’s off the charts,” the first-year head coach told reporters late in the first round. “He’s mean, tough, nasty. He really fits what we’re trying to do on offense. It was really a no-brainer. Once he was there for our pick, this was the guy.”

Membou (6-4, 332), one of the top tackles available in this draft, played and started in all 25 games for Mizzou the past two seasons, earning second-team All-SEC honors and playing in the Senior Bowl after last season. His metrics showed that he didn’t give up any sacks or any QB hits in 411 pass-blocking snaps in 2024.

Then Membou, who turned 21 last month, went to Indianapolis and wowed offensive line observers at the NFL Combine. He was clocked at 4.91 seconds in the 40 — the fastest time by any O-lineman at least 6-4 and 330 pounds since 2003, according to NFL Research.

He also registered a 9-7 broad jump, the best among all OL this year, and a 34-inch vertical jump. NFL Research also notes that he is one of four O-linemen ever to surpass a 30-inch vertical and run a sub-5.0 40 at 315-plus pounds at the Combine.

“I’m not just fast,” Membou said. “I’m strong, too. Very explosive, strong, can make any block in the game.”

“Armand is incredibly light on his feet when considering his size, fluid and entirely comfortable in motion,” **Nick Shook wrote on NFL.com**. “Clubs have been fooled by freakish test results in the past, but I wouldn’t hold Membou to the same standard. Where he fits in in the NFL remains to be seen, but the tools are definitely there.”

NFL.com draft analyst Brian Baldinger said before the draft that Membou “is a guy that I think is going to play in this league for a long time.”

He joins the Jets’ OL room, which already includes four starters from last season in LT Olu Fashanu, LG John Simpson, C Joe Tippmann and RG Alijah Vera-Tucker. Mougey confirmed, if there was any doubt, that Membou will compete for the Jets’ starting RT spot, along with UFA Chukwuma Okorafor and returnees Max Mitchell and Carter Warren, protecting the open side for new, mobile QB Justin Fields.

Membou, whose family emigrated to this country from Cameroon, grew up in Lee’s Summit, MO, a Kansas City suburb, and played four sports (football, soccer, wrestling, tennis) at Lee’s Summit North HS.

This is the first time the Jets have ever held the seventh overall pick in any of their 66 drafts and thus the first time they’ve ever used the No. 7 pick on a player.

Membou is the 10th Missouri player drafted by the Jets. The most recent Tiger taken by the Green & White, also in Round 1 with the 13th overall pick in the 2013 draft, was DL Sheldon Richardson, who played four seasons and made 56 starts for the Jets. He was selected for the Pro Bowl after his second season in 2014.

The Missouri pick before that was QB/WR/KR Brad Smith. Another Jets standout from UM was 1988 third-round S Erik McMillan, who started 52 games, made two Pro Bowls and set the franchise mark with 7 career return touchdowns.