A Turn To Positivity: The Offensive Line

Edition: #486

Good morning!

Man, the last three days have been rough. I feared the worst after the Dallas game, but the potential for the wheels to fall off of the 2023 Jets season really hit home after the Patriots walked out of Metlife with their 15th straight victory against NY.

But…there was a positive. I know it may be reaching as it was by no means perfect, but I’m going to talk about the offensive line. We can’t control the direction of the team, if Saleh is going to tie his future to Zach Wilson’s mast, then so be it. I hope it works out, I hope Zach turns it all around and makes us all look like idiots, that’s my eternal hope…but it’s not the expectation.

The Jets made their QB signing, inking veteran Trevor Siemian to a deal on Tuesday.

On Monday I was looking through the available QBs and Siemian seemed like the most likely signing for the Jets. He’s been with the team before, back in 2019 and he has some experience in a west-coast offence.

Interestingly, Siemian lost to the Jets last season as a member of the Bears where he threw for 179 yards with 1 TD to 1 INT.

His last real action came in 2020 with the Saints. He threw for 1,154 yards across 6 games, and while his accuracy of 57.4% was less than ideal, he did throw 11-3 interceptions, although they lost every game he started that year.

Overall he has a 58.9% career completion percentage over 1,055 passing attempts, 42 touchdowns and 28 interceptions.

His best season was his 2016 season in Denver where he completed 59.5% of passes for 3,401 yards, 18 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.

He didn’t have a great pre-season with the Bengals this year, completing 55.4% of his passes with 2 interceptions and no touchdowns, there’s a reason he’s still available as we enter week four.

Saying that. It’s something. Siemian isn’t the answer, but can he run the offence better than Zach Wilson? Probably, based on everything we’ve seen from both players.

There wasn’t a lot to choose from for the Jets, and Siemian to me seems like the kind of guy who won’t rock the boat too much, whereas someone like Carson Wentz may have.

Here are some more stats for his performance under pressure during his last real action back in 2021.

This may be a ‘break glass in case of emergency’ signing, someone to come in if Zach throws up another game like he did on Sunday. Someone to see us through to the trade deadline. He’s not someone who can save a season, but can he do enough? We’ll find out. We’ll also find out how tied to Zach coach Saleh is depending on how long it takes for him to insert Siemian when Zach struggles.

Siemian is set to start on the practice squad as he gets up to speed with the offence. So it’s likely to be Zach and Boyle on Sunday night.

Aaron Rodgers was on the Pat McAfee show yesterday and he had this to say:

"I think we need to hold our poise a little bit better, really just offensively. We need to not have those things happen on the sideline and to be a little better and to be a little better competitors. We need to understand this is part of it. It's not always going to be pretty ... "There's been too many little side conversations and we just need to grow up a little bit on offense and lock in and do our jobs, not point fingers at each other. Don't point fingers at the coaching staff. Don't point fingers at each other. Just get back to work and get the job done ... "I feel like if I was there, some of those things wouldn't be happening ... it's the side stuff that I don't like and want us to stick together through the tough times."

The Jets may have found the solution on the offensive line, and it’s a combination that has spent very little time playing together.

Mekhi Becton, Laken Tomlinson, Connor McGovern, Joe Tippmann, AVT

That’s it right there. I heard some grumbles about the offensive line early, but I’d argue that considering this was the first game where they’d all played together, the results were pretty damn good.

Let’s just go through some of the stats courtesy of PFF and ESPN. I’m going to include both as I know some don’t enjoy the PFF numbers. I’ve always found their numbers to be pretty accurate but their grading to be a little unpredictable.

PFF - Pass Blocking