Moving Becton to RT is not admitting failure
Why shouldn't the Jets keep Fant at LT?
Good morning Jets fans. With Tom Brady and the Buffalo Bills eliminated, I can watch this weekend’s championship games with no vested interest. For something a little different I’d quite like to see a Bengals v Rams Super Bowl, but let’s see what the weekend brings.
I haven’t commented a lot on Mekhi Becton over the last few months as we patiently waited to see if he’d make a return to the lineup. An injury he sustained in week one against Carolina was supposed to keep him out for 6-8 weeks, it ended up being a season-ending injury that kept him sidelined completely.
His absence allowed George Fant to play the position he envisioned playing when he signed with the Jets in 2020 for 3 years and $27.3 million. The Jets then pivoted and selected Becton in the first round of the draft and Fant found himself at RT.
Before the 2021 season, the Jets decided to add some insurance with the signing of veteran Morgan Moses and Fant was asked to compete with the former Washington man, Fant won the competition but that insurance paid dividends when Becton lasted just 48 snaps into the season. What happened next was pretty unexpected.
George Fant went on to have the best season in his career. He allowed a minuscule 3.1% pressure rate in pass protection, good for the 3rd best mark amongst all starting left tackles in the league. He allowed just one sack and 18 pressures in 594 pass-blocking snaps. If you looked at all left and right tackles who played a minimum of 500 pass-blocking snaps in the league last year, Fant would rank tied 1st for sacks allowed and tied 4th for pressures allowed (42 qualifiers).
In short, Fant wasn’t just a good pass protector for rookie Zach Wilson, he was elite.
While Fant isn’t the run-blocker that Becton is, his athleticism allowed him to take a step forward in that regard until Mike LaFleur’s more wide zone-based scheme, last off-season we spoke about how this system suited Fant more and we saw that play out in 2021.
Even with an offense that sputtered out of the gate and failed to keep their players healthy, the Jets run-game improved dramatically over the course of the season. When you consider the final three games, the Jets were ranked 3rd in the league with 157 rushing yards/game on average, trailing only Seattle and Cleveland.
On the face of it, when you’re coming off an elite season you have every right to expect that you’ll at least be given the opportunity to compete for the same role in 2022. It makes logical sense based on your play and it makes logical sense for consistency, for Zach, for the offense, and for Alijah Vera-Tucker too.
But you have a problem…it’s a good problem and maybe it’s not a problem at all, more a dilemma. You drafted Becton with a top 15 pick to be your starting left tackle.
I like and still believe in Becton but he also gave up 7 sacks as a rookie, so while for a rookie you’re not overly concerned, he didn’t play lights out football that makes you determined that he absolutely has to stay at that left tackle spot.
Just because he was drafted with the 11th overall pick doesn’t mean he has to play that left tackle role. Look at the man drafted just behind him, Tristan Wirfs has played two years at RT for Tampa Bay and he has been exceptional. He’s allowed 2 sacks on over 1,400 pass-blocking snaps, do you think anyone minds that he was taken that high to play tackle on the right side? I highly doubt it.
Your draft position should not be the deciding factor on if you play or not…that’s how bad teams stay bad.
You put the best unit out there to win football games and at the moment, based on what we’ve seen so far you’d be hard-pressed to convince me that Becton playing LT definitely gives you the better chance to in…because that doesn’t add up with the eye test or the statistical metrics.
I’m not saying you hand the job to Fant either, but you absolutely have to be open to having both players rotate through both tackle spots at the start of camp with a view to making a decision before you get down to the heavy portion of camp.
Don’t forget that Becton played his first two years at Louisville at right tackle, so he does have experience playing on the right side, and while I don’t subscribe to the concept that your left tackle is your pass protector and your right tackle is your run blocker, I’d still rather have the better pass protector on the QB’s blindside. Maybe that’s just me, but that’s logical in my opinion.
If keeping Fant at left tackle and moving Becton to right tackle makes the line better, keeps Zach upright, and improves the teams’ chances of winning…then you do that, it doesn’t matter if Becton was the 11th or 111th pick in the draft.
If after the open competition you think that Becton out-performed Fant, then the job is his. It’s that simple, then you either decide to trade Fant due to his value never being higher and him coming off a great 2020 season, or you put him at right tackle.
Jovante Moffatt
The Jets announced yesterday that they had signed safety Jovante Moffatt to a future/reserve contract. This basically just means that they are securing Moffat for the start of the league year and while the contract doesn’t count against the 53 now, he’ll be part of the off-season roster of 90 players once the new league year comes into effect on March 16th at 4pm EST.
Moffatt was an undrafted player out of Middle Tennessee in 2020 and spent the last two seasons as a member of the Cleveland Browns. He’s appeared in 119 snaps over two years with half of those coming on special teams.
Moffat played over 5 seasons for Middle Tennessee racking up 255 tackles, 4 interceptions, and 8 pass break-ups. Jovante played both as a free safety and box safety in college and will battle for a roster spot this summer.
Corey Davis Contract
Earlier this week, PFF ran their annual best/worst free-agent signings piece for the 2021 off-season. The Jets didn’t have anyone on the “best” list, which isn’t surprising considering our main free-agent addition Carl Lawson didn’t play a single snap due to an Achilles injury, but we did have someone on the “worst” list.
First of all, we need some context. Here are the other players who appeared on that list: Bud Dupree (Titans), Kenny Golladay (Giants), Sam Darnold (not a signing but he was still on there) and Pat Elflein (Panthers).
So the fact they had Golladay on there makes sense, he signed a $72 million deal and caught 0 touchdowns, but why is Corey Davis on there?
Yes, he was a bit of a disappointment because of his injuries and his issues with drops, but did he really deserve to be among the 5 worst signings?
Curtis Samuel signed a 3 year $34.5 million deal with the Panthers and he caught 6 passes in 2021. Nelson Agholar signed a 2 year $22 million deal with the patriots and he caught 37 passes in 15 games, Corey caught 34 in 9 games and had 4 touchdowns to Nelson’s 3.
Not only does he not deserve to be in the top 5 worst signings, he isn’t even in the top 4 worst signings at the position. I’m not saying he was good, we signed him to be a WR1 and he only came close to that arguably twice…in the defeat to Carolina and the win over Tennessee. He struggled with drops with his 8.5% drop rate (PFR) being the highest mark of his career, if he can stay healthy and revert to the norm and his 2020 drop % of 3.3 then he’ll be much better in 2022.
He also happened to miss the portion of the season where the Jets got their act together and started moving the football downfield.