Roster Projection - Offence

Edition #683

Good morning! ☕

Remember when we were really pining for training camp in the middle of June? Well I’m done with it now. Each day I just cross my fingers that nobody gets injured before the lights turn on for real.

A lot of content at the moment is centred around fantasy football, and when I say a lot I’d say we’re looking at 90%+. I know from last year that a lot of TJW readers don’t play/are not interested in reading it, so you won’t find any from me this year. Mainly because I have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about with fantasy football.

Today I’m starting my roster projection, first up…it’s the offence.

🟢 We haven’t started the 2024 season, but that hasn’t stopped ESPN from putting our a 2025 mock draft with the Jets picking #20. With that pick they have us taking defensive tackle Deone Walker out of Kentucky - “Offensive line will certainly be in play here, as Aaron Rodgers would be 41 at the start of next season and both veteran tackles acquired this offseason would be off the books (though Olu Fashanu will start at one tackle spot for a long, long time). But Walker would help the Jets' defense, which always seems to be in the market for bodies to pair with All-Pro defensive tackle Quinnen Williams. Walker is massive at 6-6 and 345 pounds but doesn't move like it, as he has quickness and burst that shouldn't be allowed at that size. He is a factor both against the run and bursting the bubble of the pocket, tallying 7.5 sacks and 11.5 tackles for loss in 2023.”

⚪ What’s the best division in football? If it wasn’t for the New England Patriots I think the AFC East would have a good shout. But according to Dan Graziano, the AFC North is the crème de la crème when it comes to the NFL this year. The AFC East actually came 5th out of the 8 divisions, with Dan saying: “Could the FPI be overrating all four of these teams? It's possible. The Bills will still be good despite the veteran roster purge they underwent this offseason, but I can't go so far as to rank them the fifth-best team in the league. You could make a case for any of the five teams immediately behind them in the rankings to have better seasons -- and that still wouldn't rule out the Bills winning their fifth AFC East title in a row. Miami has major question marks on defense until it gets its injured pass rushers back to full strength. And let's be honest, we need to see the Dolphins finish off a season and cash in their traditionally hot start with a division title before we can fully believe in the program down there. The range of potential outcomes with the Jets is as vast as with any team in the league. They could be a conference title contender or a third-place wreck, and neither would qualify as a huge surprise. And the Patriots might be the worst team in the league.”

🟢 Sticking with ESPN for a minute, they released their latest power rankings. The Jets are all the way down in 15th with the Bills and Dolphins both finding themselves inside the top ten. “In three years under Saleh, the Jets have no playoff appearances and an 18-33 record, second worst in the AFC. He got a mulligan for last season after losing quarterback Aaron Rodgers to a season-ending injury on the fourth snap, but owner Woody Johnson won't be as forgiving if this season goes south. To be fair, Saleh has been saddled with subpar quarterback play since he got the job (a league-low 32.6 QBR), but he knows that alibi doesn't last forever in the NFL.”

Sauce Gardner believes that Aaron Rodgers has a few more years left in the league - “He’s got a few more years in the league, to me … He’s the best quarterback I’ve ever seen and I’m not saying that because he’s on my team.”

Lazard continues to have an up-and-down camp, a few plays after dropping a pass, he caught a touchdown in a two-minute drill where the Jets went 5-6. In the full-field drills the Jets were 7-9 with 2 touchdowns, both to Wilson. It was a really dominant day for the Jets.

• Olu Fashanu sat out the joint practice with the Giants with a strained elbow. Robert Saleh doesn’t believe it’s anything to be concerned about.

• The Jets were the big winners on the day. Malik Nabers rarely matched up with Sauce Gardner but outside of him getting behind Reed once (dropped the TD) he really didn’t find that much success. It’s one thing beating those Giants corners, it’s an entirely different matter trying to beat the Jets secondary.

• Brian Burns got some success against the Jets offensive line. But the Jets won as many battles as they lose and with the Giants defensive line, that’s a win.

• Garrett Wilson is going to be a big problem this season with Aaron Rodgers throwing him the ball. On a day where the Jets QB bounced back in a big way, Wilson largely embarrassed the Giants secondary and caught balls for fun.

• He wasn’t the only one, chalk that down as a good session for Jason Brownlee, who caught the final ball of the day for a TD with Sauce Gardner waving the Giants off the field.

I usually save this for after the third and final pre-season game, but as I’m away in Germany next week I want to spend as much time as possible talking about the San Francisco 49ers as soon as the time expires against the Giants.

I’m going to split the roster projection into two pieces. Today I’m going to take a look at the offensive side of the ball, and tomorrow I’m going to take a look at defense and special teams.

The hardest part in building a roster projection is deciding how many players the Jets are going to carry at each position.

This was the final breakdown on cutdown day, where teams are forced to go all the way from 90 players to 53. It’s a crap day for coaches, it’s a crap day for players and it’s a crap day for fans. We usually get pretty attached to some players who end up getting that tap on the shoulder with instructions to grab the playbook and head to the GMs office.

(2) QB: Aaron Rodgers, Zach Wilson

(4) RB: Dalvin Cook, Breece Hall, Israel Abanikanda, Michael Carter

(7) WR: Garrett Wilson, Allen Lazard, Randall Cobb, Mecole Hardman, Jason Brownlee, Xavier Gipson, Irv Charles

(4) TE: Tyler Conklin, CJ Uzomah, Jeremy Ruckert, Kenny Yeboah

(10) OL: Duane Brown, Laken Tomlinson, Connor McGovern, Alijah Vera-Tucker, Mekhi Becton, Joe Tippmann, Max Mitchell, Billy Turner, Wes Schweitzer, Carter Warren

I’m going to use this as a guide, with the Jets keeping 27 players on the offensive side of the ball.

So without further ado, here is my offensive roster projection.