Ranking the Jets positional groups

Edition #168

Good morning!

Knicks got themselves a point guard and Kevin Durant requested a trade from the Nets, that’s NY basketball in a nutshell as the NBA’s free agency period kicks into gear.

Unfortunately for us, we’re still a few weeks away from camp so the news is limited.

QUOTE - Jeff Ulbrich on having to pick players up through the season. "It's interesting," Ulbrich said this spring. "Not only youth got in our way a little bit at times but also the injuries and COVID, and we had a lot of guys come through here that weren't necessarily here in the offseason, let alone in training camp. We picked up all these guys who ended up playing a substantial amount of plays for us that didn't have the background of this defense."

PFF ranked the Jets as one of the 5 most improved teams in football this season - "New York did plenty of work in free agency to fill the voids their roster had, most notably signing guard Laken Tomlinson, safety Jordan Whitehead, and cornerback D.J. Reed," PFF said. "Reed may be the most important of the bunch after the Jets ranked 29thin the NFL last year in outside coverage grade. The former Seattle corner ranked top-10 in PFF grades for the 2021 system and fits like a glove in New York's scheme."

They also ranked the Jets secondary as one of the most improved position groups in football, saying: “Last year’s crop of Jets outside cornerbacks was brutal. The unit ranked 29th in coverage grade among the 32 NFL teams. To help overhaul that group, the team added Reed, who was a top-10 cornerback by PFF grade with the Seattle Seahawks in 2021. He spent a short stint in San Francisco with Robert Saleh and fits his defense like a glove. There’s still a lot of work to be done to further improve the secondary in the 2022 NFL Draft, but this was a good start for New York”

PFF’s article about the Jets’ improvement in the secondary got me thinking about the state of all the positional groups. Where are we strongest? Where are we weakest? In some areas like Quarterback, there is a lot of unknown, but I’m also going to base these rankings on potential as well as proven ability.

Feel free to put your positional group rankings in the comments below, but here are mine from worst to first.

Linebacker - I’m surprised we haven’t improved this position group and signing Marcell Harris wasn’t an improvement, I don’t think he’ll even make the team. I like CJ and I like the potential of Quincy, but both of them struggle in coverage and we’re going to face some very good receiving running backs this season. Kwon Alexander is still out there and while he’s not a star, he would add some veteran depth to the roster and he would instantly become our best coverage linebacker. Jamien Sherwood is still working his way back from a torn Achilles and Hamsah wasn’t trusted outside of special teams in year one, so there is a lot of unknown with this position group. Both Saleh and Ulbrich have extensive experience with linebackers so you have to trust their judgment, but the linebacker group doesn’t fill me with confidence.

Defensive Tackle - I think the positioning of this group will depend on where you place John Franklin-Myers. If you place him at edge then the defensive tackle group is basically Quinnen Williams and then everyone else. If you place him as a defensive tackle then this group is drastically improved, based on his ability to play the run alone. I’m still not convinced that Sheldon Rankins will make the final roster based on his salary cap hit and the Jet’s depth elsewhere, we know the Jets will work JFM and Micheal Clemons inside because they’ve said as much this off-season, so if Rankins does struggle in camp he could become one of those “surprise cuts”. As it is, I' don’t feel overly confident with the ability of our defensive tackles to stop the run.

Special Teams - The Jets were actually graded as having the 2nd best special teams unit in the league last year, so it may seem strange to have them here but that’s more about the strength in other areas than it is anything else. I’m still not sold on Eddy Piniero or Braden Mann and there’s a world where neither is with the Jets at the end of the season (or the start of the season for that matter), which is why I’ve placed this unit here. Thomas Hennessy is about as reliable as you get as a long snapper and he’s one of the best tackling long snappers in the league, a lot of people don’t realize that he leads the league in tackles from the position over the last few years. We have some standouts on specials like Del'Shawn Phillips and Kenny Yeboah did a job last year too. We do have a specialized gunner in Justin Hardee, but his place on the team could be in jeopardy considering he offers very little on defense and he was called for 5 penalties last season and led the unit with 5 missed tackles as well.

Quarterback - This one may be the most controversial as I know a lot of people back Zach’s potential, and I do as well. But, he put a lot of bad on tape and his improvement came with a level of conservatism that won’t be accepted for long. I love the way he’s come back this year in great shape, he’s a year into the system which is absolutely vital to any progression and he has a supporting cast. I hope that at this time next season he’s at the top of the list, and it wouldn’t shock me if he was. As things stand and looking at the other positional groups that have proven commodities in place, I couldn’t place a QB who completed 55.6% of his passes any higher than this. I like that we brought Joe Flacco back and we should have had a veteran in the room for Zach all alone, but the Jets identified their mistake and corrected it mid-season. Flacco is good enough to take over and fill in if need be and then we have a developmental guy in Mike White who we hope will become the backup in 2023.

Tight End - I absolutely love our tight end room in 2022, and this is getting into the real strengths of the team, which is positive because we still have 5 positional groups remaining. This room has had a complete overhaul and it needed a complete overhaul. We haven’t had a dangerous tight-end room since Dustin Keller, and that’s a long time ago now. There’s a lot of talk about who will be TE1 and who will be TE2, but I’m not sure it matters. There will be formations where both Tyler Conklin and CJ Uzomah get on the field together and then you have the option to play the hot hand in terms of the receivers. Add Jeremy Ruckert into the mix and you have yourself a complete room in terms of receiving and blocking, with plenty of character and leadership sprinkled in. The Jets worked to give Zach Wilson some big-bodied targets and I think they did a fine job here. Conklin had 61 receptions for 593 yards last season and it wouldn’t shock me to see him go past that this year.

Secondary - As PFF alluded to, the Jets worked hard to upgrade their secondary this year and they brought in three players that I love, DJ Reed and Jordan Whitehead are two of the most undervalued additions to this Jets roster. DJ Reed had a very similar grade to JC Jackson last season and he was a top-10 corner in the league, why are we not shouting about this signing more? Whitehead is that physical presence and while he played closer to the line in Tampa, the feeling you get out of Florham is that the Jets expect him to play all over the field, stating he’s a better coverage safety than many give him credit for. You then add in Sauce and you have yourself a revitalized room, the only thing stopping this unit from being higher on my list is the free safety position. At the moment we’re relying on a veteran who hasn’t played the position since 2018 and coming off a season-ending injury to step up. If not him we have a former 3rd-round pick who’s disappointed so far and a converted 5th-round cornerback.

Offensive Line - For so long offensive line has been right at the bottom of these positional groups, but no longer. Joe Douglas has spent considerable resources to improve this position group and this unit has the potential to be top-10 next season, I’m almost going to be disappointed if they’re not a top-10 unit. The line showed potential last season with George Fant having a career year, AVT showing his ability in the run game, and Connor McGovern having a bounce-back season. You then add in Laken Tomlinson who’s a natural leader with experience with this system and the return of Mekhi Becton and you have something pretty special. I like some of the depth inside as well and believe Herbig to be a value pickup. My one issue is the depth at tackle, and that’s why this position group isn’t at the top of this list. We’re an injury to Fant/Becton away from seeing Connor McDermott or Chuma Edoga protecting Zach’s blindside.

Wide Receiver - I’m taking a little bit of a leap of faith here with the wide receivers and betting on that potential. Elijah Moore finished last season like a top 10 wide receiver in the league and his connection with Zach is very real. Garrett Wilson was my #1 rated wide receiver in the draft this year and he’s already making moves in OTA’s. You then add in Zach’s favorite target in Braxton Berrios and Corey Davis who I believe will have a bounceback year and you have a great core group to work with. You then have Jeff Smith and Denzel Mims fighting it out for that 5th spot and with the news that Mims has come back in great shape and has got the playbook down, that’s exciting. I’m a huge believer in this receiving unit and I believe we’ll have a 1000-yard guy on the roster this year, I just can’t decide if it’s going to be Elijah Moore or Garrett Wilson. It used to be true that rookie receivers took time to develop, but we’ve seen recently with guys like Ja’Marr Chase that some guys just make the jump seamlessly, and while I’m not saying Wilson is Chase, he has a ton of talent.

Running Back - Another leap of faith, but can you find anyone that’s not buying into the Michael Carter and Breece Hall tandem? I know I can’t. There is depth behind those two with guys like Tevin Coleman, Ty Johnson, and Zonovan Knight, but let’s be honest Hall and Carter will get 80%+ of the carries as long as they stay healthy. Carter was one of the most elusive running backs in the league last year, on a per snap basis I believe he was the 3rd most elusive RB in football, then add Breece Hall who is a physical and agile running back and defenses just won’t get a break. With the Jets improved offensive line and the philosophy of utilizing the run-game heavily in the Shanahan system, I’m expecting to see something special this season. The last time I was this excited about the run game, #28 was in the backfield for New York.

Defensive End - There is a lot of unknown here with Carl Lawson coming back from a bad injury and the Jets relying on a rookie, but this position group is absolutely loaded. It’s so loaded that a good player is going to have to get cut during the final roster cut-down. On one hand, you have Carl Lawson one of the more destructive ends in football and on the other, you have Jermaine Johnson, one of the more productive ends in college football last season. When they take a break you have Jacob Martin who had 38 pressures for Houston last season, or Bryce Huff who had the highest pass-rush win % on the Jets in 2021. The Jets may want to play John Franklin-Myers outside at points or release the violence that is Micheal Clemons…the Jets have so many options. It’s hard to argue that defensive end isn’t the strongest position group for the Jets.