FLORHAM PARK, N.J. (AP) — Jelani Woods' football comeback will continue with the New York Jets.
The tight end, who hasn't played in a regular-season game since 2022 because of injuries, was one of three players claimed on waivers by the Jets on Wednesday.
The 26-year-old Woods was among Indianapolis' final cuts Tuesday after he had seven catches for 75 yards in the preseason. He was a third-round draft pick of the Colts in 2022 out of Virginia and had a promising rookie season during which he caught 25 passes for 312 yards and three touchdowns in 15 games, including two starts.
But Woods missed the following season with a hamstring injury and then was forced to sit out all of last season after suffering turf toe in training camp and requiring surgery. He bounced back this summer and was healthy but was caught in a numbers game with the Colts keeping four tight ends on their initial roster, including first-round pick Tyler Warren, Mo Alie-Cox, Will Mallory and Drew Ogletree.
With the Jets, the 6-foot-7, 253-pound Woods joins a tight ends room that includes second-round pick Mason Taylor, Jeremy Ruckert and Stone Smartt.
“A huge tight end that's going to help us as a blocker and as a receiver,” coach Aaron Glenn said of Woods.
The Jets also claimed two players off waivers from the Chiefs: linebacker Cam Jones and offensive tackle Esa Pole.
Jones played in every game the last two seasons for Kansas City, including two starts, after being signed as an undrafted free agent out of Indiana.
“A very productive player,” Glenn said. “Looking forward to him getting with this linebacker crew and really making noise on special teams for us.”
Pole, a 6-7, 319-pound O-lineman, was signed as an undrafted rookie this year out of Washington State, where he played left tackle.
“A developmental guy, but I think he's got a lot of tools,” Glenn said.
The Jets released wide receiver Tyler Johnson and then signed him to their practice squad. They also waived linebacker Zaire Barnes and offensive lineman Marquis Hayes to add Woods, Jones and Pole.
New York's pratice squad also includes quarterback Brady Cook; wide receivers Jamaal Pritchett and Quentin Skinner; defensive back Jordan Clark, son of former NFL safety Ryan Clark; safety Dean Clark; defensive linemen Eric Watts and Payton Page; linebacker Aaron “Boog” Smith; offensive linemen Kohl Levao and Leander Wiegand; and kicker Harrison Mevis — all of whom were waived by the Jets on Tuesday.
The competition for the starting center job is still going between Joe Tippmann and Josh Myers — and Glenn remains tight-lipped on whether either has the upper hand.
“It's still playing out,” Glenn said.
When asked what his plans are for the position, Glenn said wryly: “To play a center.”
Tippmann has started most of the last two seasons at center after being drafted in the second round out of Wisconsin in 2023. Myers was signed as a free agent in March after he played his first four seasons in Green Bay. He also has familiarity with quarterback Justin Fields; the two were teammates at Ohio State for two years.
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl
Indianapolis Colts tight end Jelani Woods (80) runs past Cincinnati Bengals safety Shaquan Loyal (47) during the second half of a preseason NFL football game, Saturday, Aug. 23, 2025, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Jeff Dean)
Indianapolis Colts tight end Jelani Woods (80) tries to make a catch while being hit by Green Bay Packers cornerback Tyron Herring (46) during the second half of a preseason NFL football game, Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/AJ Mast)
BEIJING (AP) — In China, the names of things are often either ornately poetic or jarringly direct. A new, wildly popular app among young Chinese people is definitively the latter.
It's called, simply, “Are You Dead?"
In a vast country whose young people are increasingly on the move, the new, one-button app — which has taken the country by digital storm this month — is essentially exactly what it says it is. People who live alone in far-off cities and may be at risk — or just perceived as such by friends or relatives — can push an outsized green circle on their phone screens and send proof of life over the network to a friend or loved one. The cost: 8 yuan (about $1.10).
It's simple and straightforward — essentially a 21st-century Chinese digital version of those American pendants with an alert button on them for senior citizens that gave birth to the famed TV commercial: “I've fallen, and I can't get up!”
Developed by three young people in their 20s, “Are You Dead?” became the most downloaded paid app on the Apple App Store in China last week, according to local media reports. It is also becoming a top download in places as diverse as Singapore and the Netherlands, Britain and India and the United States — in line with the developers' attitude that loneliness and safety aren't just Chinese issues.
“Every country has young people who move to big cities to chase their dreams,” Ian Lü, 29, one of the app's developers, said Thursday.
Lü, who worked and lived alone in the southern city of Shenzhen for five years, experienced such loneliness himself. He said the need for a frictionless check-in is especially strong among introverts. “It's unrealistic,” he said, “to message people every day just to tell them you're still alive.”
Against the backdrop of modern and increasingly frenetic Chinese life, the market for the app is understandable.
Traditionally, Chinese families have tended to live together or at least in close proximity across generations — something embedded deep in the nation's culture until recent years. That has changed in the last few decades with urbanization and rapid economic growth that have sent many Chinese to join what is effectively a diaspora within their own nation — and taken hundreds of millions far from parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles.
Today, the country has more than 100 million households with only one person, according to an annual report from the National Bureau of Statistics of China in 2024.
Consider Chen Xingyu, 32, who has lived on her own for years in Kunming, the capital of southern China’s Yunnan province. “It is new and funny. The name ’Are You Dead?' is very interesting,” Chen said.
Chen, a “lying flat” practitioner who has rejected the grueling, fast-paced career of many in her age group, would try the app but worries about data security. “Assuming many who want to try are women users, if information of such detail about users gets leaked, that’d be terrible,” she said.
Yuan Sangsang, a Shanghai designer, has been living on her own for a decade and describes herself as a “single cow and horse.” She's not hoping the app will save her life — only help her relatives in the event that she does, in fact, expire alone.
"I just don’t want to die with no dignity, like the body gets rotten and smelly before it is found," said Yuan, 38. “That would be unfair for the ones who have to deal with it.”
While such an app might at first seem best suited to elderly people — regardless of their smartphone literacy — all reports indicate that “Are You Dead?” is being snapped up by younger people as the wry equivalent of a social media check-in.
“Some netizens say that the 'Are you dead?' greeting feels like a carefree joke between close friends — both heartfelt and gives a sense of unguarded ease,” the business website Yicai, the Chinese Business Network, said in a commentary. ""It likely explains why so many young people unanimously like this app."
The commentary, by writer He Tao, went further in analyzing the cultural landscape. He wrote that the app's immediate success “serves as a darkly humorous social metaphor, reminding us to pay attention to the living conditions and inner world of contemporary young people. Those who downloaded it clearly need more than just a functional security measure; they crave a signal of being seen and understood.”
Death is a taboo subject in Chinese culture, and the word itself is shunned to the point where many buildings in China have no fourth floor because the word for “four” and the word for “death” sound the same — “si.” Lü acknowledged that the app's name sparked public pressure.
“Death is an issue every one of us has to face,” he said. “Only when you truly understand death do you start thinking about how long you can exist in this world, and how you want to realize the value of your life.”
A few days ago, though, the developers said on their official account on China’s Weibo social platform that they’d pivot to a new name. Their choice: the more cryptic “Demumu,” which they said they hoped could "serve more solo dwellers globally.”
Then, a twist: Late Wednesday, the app team posted on its Weibo account that workshopping the name Demumu didn’t turn out “as well as expected.” The app team is offering a reward for whoever offers a new name that will be picked this weekend. Lü said more than 10,000 people have weighed in.
The reward for the new moniker: $96 — or, in China, 666 yuan.
Fu Ting reported from Washington. AP researcher Shihuan Chen in Beijing contributed.
The app Are You Dead? is seen on a smartphone in Beijing, China, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
A woman looks at her smartphone in a cafe in Beijing, China, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
A woman looks at her smartphone outside a restaurant in Beijing, China, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
A man looks down near his smartphone in Beijing, China, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
A man reacts while holding his smartphone in Beijing, China, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
