7-10 New York Jets: 5 Off-Season Questions

Edition #302

Good morning ☀️

Now the season is in the rearview mirror it’s time to reflect. Are you pleased with the overall progress? Do you think it was another wasted season? Do you believe we’re on the right path? I took some flak from the Jet’s Twitter community for daring to look at some positives.

Of course, it was disappointing to miss the playoffs again, and yes I’m as frustrated as anyone about the lack of development from the QB and the offense as a whole, but am I going to sit here and say we haven’t seen any progress? No. Mainly because I think to say that would be categorically untrue.

Today we’re going to quickly summarise the final game and then get into five questions facing the Jets as we head into the offseason.

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🕰 30 seconds or less: Stop me if you’ve heard this story before. The Jet’s offense was unable to create any running lanes or protect the QB while scoring just 6 points, the third game in a row where they haven’t scored a touchdown. The defense held up limiting Miami to three field goals and pressuring Skylar Thompson consistently. Garrett Wilson was the only guy catching balls and Sauce managed to frustrate Tyree Hill who was held in check all afternoon. Unfortunately, the final score of 11-6 tells the story. With the Buffalo win against New England, Miami sneaked into the playoffs and will head to the Bills in the wildcard game.

What can you really say about that game? It ended exactly how I thought it was going to end. Anyone who saw the news that Flacco would be starting behind a line that played Mike Remmers, Cedric Ogbuehi, and Dan Feeney knew how this was going to go.

In fact, I’m pretty surprised we scored 6 points.

Flacco completed 54.5% of his passes for 169 yards, each dropback seemed to be pressured more than the last.

The Jets averaged 1.9 yards a carry, with Zonovan Knight (1.8 YPC) and Michael Carter (1.3 YPC) being hit as soon as they touched the ball.

Only Garrett Wilson (9) caught more than 2 passes and received 13 more targets (17) than the next Jets receiver Tyler Conklin (4).

Everyone knew the ball was going to Wilson, but even when Miami doubled him with Jason Holland over the top, he still managed to catch pass after pass.

Despite the amount of pressure in the game, there was only one sack. Quincy Williams with the uncontested rush off the edge. He also had a questionable penalty late in the game, but we didn’t deserve to win it anyway.

The Jets managed 9 QB hits in the end, but Thompson to his credit did a good job throwing the ball away before he was downed.

It seemed fitting that we got the ball back with 18 seconds to go with no timeouts, having wasted two just a handful of minutes into the second half. Players need to get better, and game management does too.

It was good to see Jeremy Ruckert register a catch and I thought both Bryce Huff and Jermaine Johnson had good games.

I’m not sure what else we can say about that game. It seems like wasted words to dwell on it.

Afterward, Sauce Gardner expressed his confidence in the Jets being in the playoffs this time next year.

Tyler Conklin was left dumbfounded by how the season crashed and burned with 6 straight losses to end the season.

Robert Saleh wouldn't commit to Mike LaFleur returning, instead opting to go down the classic “We need to evaluate everything and do what's best for the team” angle.

Woody Johnson was standing outside the locker room greeting all the players, when asked for a comment he declined and said he'd talk with the media later this week.

All in all, it was a sad end to a season that started with a 5-2 bang.

I'm not as negative as some. I see the progress we've made, I see the impact of the injuries. But I also see that there are plenty of improvements to be made.

Instead, we’ll now turn our attention to the off-season.

The Jets have the 13th pick in the draft and you should get yourself a very good player at that pick. We're going to be doing a lot of work on the draft over the coming months.

Here are the 2013 opponents for the Jets with the AFC West on the docket, which means Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert coming to Metlife.

1. Fixing the coaching staff

You don't finish the season on a 6-game losing streak, including 3 straight games without a touchdown, and bring the exact same staff back. It just doesn't happen.

That won't fly with the fans and I don't think it'll fly with Woody Johnson either, especially after all the positivity that was flowing around the franchise back in October.

The question isn't if you're going to make changes, it's how drastic are those changes going to be.

For me, the Jets have two options and neither is cleaning house. I think after Saleh took the team from 2 wins to 4 wins to 7 wins, he'll get another season.

Ulbrich has overseen one of the best defenses in the NFL, so he's safe.

Option one is largely clearing the offensive staff out and starting fresh. Frank Reich has been talked about, but I'm not sure he'd want to tie himself to a coaching staff with a playoff or done mandate, which is what I think Saleh will have next year.

Option two is to fire some assistant coaches and bring in some veteran help. I'm talking about a well-respected and long-tenured quarterbacks coach. If you need to give them an extended title like passing game coordinator to wrestle them away from their current team then so be it.

Mike LaFleur is a young coach learning the ropes, but have the Jets got time to allow him to do that? He failed to make adjustments through the season in terms of concept and personnel usage. The wide zone didn't work because we didn't have the players to effectively run it once linemen started going down. Yet we continued to trot out the same concepts and 1.9 yards a carry is where we landed. That's on Mike and that's on run game coordinator John Benton, who has done himself no favors this year.

Benton has a wealth of experience running NFL offensive lines dating back to his time with the Rams between 2004-05. 2021 was the first time he added run-game coordinator to his title, and while I have no issues with the Jets keeping Benton who’s highly respected, maybe the time has come to hand over the run-game coordinator position to someone else.

The Jets coaching staff needs a little rejuvenation on the offensive side of the ball and I’d expect a couple of new hires over the coming months.

2. Finding the right QB

This is going to be the single most important task the Jets will have this off-season.

The 2023 starter isn't on the roster, I'm pretty confident about that statement. The bigger question is where do we find him?

I have absolutely no interest in drafting a first-round QB. Too risky.

For me, it comes down to three options. Can you swing for the fences and somehow try and get Lamar Jackson? Very unlikely.

Failing that you go out and you try and get someone who is proven at the NFL level.

Derek Carr is available, and he'd instantly become the best QB we've had in a long time. His name sometimes conjures negativity, but take a moment to go and look at his stats, he's good, and he's very good.

Jimmy G knows the offense and is set to be available. Two questions on that one. Are the 49ers sold on Lance/Purdy to the point they're ready to move on, two, what about those injuries? It seems jimmy misses time every season and it's not as though the Jet’s medical staff have a track record of keeping guys healthy.

Is there a world where the Jets strike out on all of those options? Absolutely. Then you go down to the next tier.

Geno Smith, Jacoby Brisssett, Gardner Minshew, Teddy Bridgewater, and Taylor Heinicke. Dare I even mention the name Sam Darnold, it’s not happening but I know a few Jets fans who wouldn’t hate that.

3. Fixing the offensive line

What a mess.

It seems like we make that statement about the offensive line every single year.

The Jets were extremely unlucky to experience so many injuries within one position group. You can't really blame Joe Douglas or anyone else for that.

But the one marquee signing we made on the offensive line last year has been a huge failure.

The Jets paid Laken Tomlinson and he is currently set to make over $17 million next season. This year he's looked as though he's a borderline starter in the league.

Is it a one-year blip? Or have we discovered that Trent Williams had more to do with Laken's success in San Francisco than Laken did? It's a question the Jets will need to answer.

It's not just Laken though. The Jets need to make a decision on center Connor McGovern who's set to be a free agent. Do they resign him or let him go? If you let him go, who are you replacing him with?

How much will the Jets rely on the return from injury of AVT and Mekhi Becton? Can they rely on Becton at all? My instinct is no.

What will they do with Fant who's been playing on one leg? How about Herbig who struggles to stay healthy? Will they look to the trade market to strengthen or rely on the draft and free agency?

One thing is for sure, if none of the guys who started for the Jets yesterday returned next year, I wouldn't lose much sleep over it.

The simple fact is that you have to fix the offensive line for an offense to be successful. Even with a great QB behind center, if you can’t block for the run-game and you can’t pass-protect, you’re likely not going to reach your ultimate goal.

I think the offensive line will be a priority in the draft with the Jets looking to the trade or free agency market for the answer at QB.

4. What to do with Zach

Last week someone within the Jets organization admitted what we've known all along.

Zach was not ready to start and he would have benefitted from sitting behind a veteran for a year.

Will the Jets sit him behind a veteran next year? Will they cut their losses and trade him?

It's a big decision for the Jets and the setup that drafted him. I can't see Joe Douglas and Robert Saleh banking their jobs on Zach Wilson making the third-year leap.

Have the Jets failed to develop Zach or has Zach just failed to develop? Is there a difference?

We are 2 years and 22 games into his NFL career now and he’s shown little to no improvement across the board. I’d almost argue he looked worse this year than he did during his rookie campaign. His interception percentage of 2.9% is exactly the same this year as it was last year.

He’s completed 55.2% of his passes and thrown for just over 4000 yards. He’s missed time through injury in both years and been benched too. It hasn’t gone to plan.

I don't think it's too late to sit him for a year and bring in someone like Carr or Jimmy G. It may not sound appealing, but take the spotlight off and get a full year to evaluate him and see if he's making any progress.

5. Cap Space

I don't tend to worry about cap space all that much.

Teams have shown countless times that there are ways to manipulate it to quickly create space and opportunities.

It's how so many teams seem to be able to sign star after star.

The Jets have some very easy wins to open up some cap space. It starts with cutting Carl Lawson and Corey Davis, two players who have had their moments but have disappointed.

Cutting Lawson would instantly open up $15 million of cap savings with just $333k in dead money. Cutting Corey will open up $10.5 million with just $666k in dead cap. When you can open up 25 million by cutting two players who aren’t stars, you usually do it. Especially when you have replacements in-house, and the Jets certainly have that for Lawson.

As of today according to Over The Cap, the Jets have $15.2 million in cap space. Those two cuts move the Jets to $40.7 million.

Jordan Whitehead has been disappointing and if you decided to cut him then that moves the needle to almost $50 million of cap space. That’s not saying the Jets will do that, but with cuts alone, they can create space. Then add in some restructuring, some trades, etc, and that’s why I don’t fret too much about cap space.

Every cut needs to be replaced, which is sometimes forgotten when we play armchair GM.

They can restructure numerous players, guys like Laken will either need to restructure if the Jets still believe in him, or get cut to open up space.

The Jets will need to decide what to do with the space they create. Guys like Quincy Williams and Kwon Alexander are free agents, and my instinct is the Jets will want to keep most of their defense intact, with some additions at defensive tackle and safety.