The Offensive Line Rebuild

Edition #294

Good morning!

We’re now just 4 days away from a must-win game in Seattle. The Seahawks are currently on the outside of the playoff picture looking in, and they’ll be seeing this game as the perfect opportunity to catapult themselves into the playoffs.

Today I wanted to talk about the offensive line. The Jets have spent the last 2-3 years trying to rejuvenate the line and as of today, we can safely say it’s failed. So what do we really need to do to solidify the line going forward?

The Jets currently have 6 offensive linemen on injured reserve and will be heading into the offseason with more questions than answers along one of the most important position groups in football. Right now, outside of Alijah Vera-Tucker, I don’t think there’s any clarity on who will be starting in 2023.

Seven linemen are set to hit free agency this Spring:

George Fant - Tackle
Connor McGovern - Center
Dan Feeney - Guard
Nate Herbig - Guard
Cedric Ogbuehi - Tackle
Mike Remmers - Tackle
Dru Samia - Guard

This leaves the following players signed to a contract for 2023:

Laken Tomlinson - $17.3 million
Mekhi Becton - $5.8 million
Duane Brown - $11.5 million
Alijah Vera-Tucker - $4.3 million
Max Mitchell - $ 1 million
Greg Senat - $940k

When you break it down by position group, that means we have 4 tackles (depending on where you see AVT’s long-term future, and 2 guards. AVT and Mitchell are guaranteed to be back with the team next season and both have shown promise, with AVT looking like a pro bowler at multiple positions. I think the Jets drafted AVT with the goal of making him a dominant guard, so I can certainly see them moving him back there.

The irony to all of this that the Jets offensive line is one of the weakest in all of football, yet if you look at spend, nobody is spending more on their offensive line than the Jets.

I wanted to share that because while the line has been poor, there is an element of bad luck here. I don't know another situation in the NFL that's comparable to what the Jets have had to deal with this year with their offensive line injuries, which means we've had to continue adding playing and spending cap at that position, which was almost certainly unplanned.

The issue now is that next year we have more questions than answers.

Laken Tomlinson

I've seen more than one person talk about the prospect of cutting Laken Tomlinson following a disappointing first season in New York, but financially that doesn’t make a lot of sense.

If you look at the contract breakdown, there is little chance of Laken getting cut before free agency, the Jets would be on the hook for over $18 million, post-June they could cut him and save a few million, but they’d still be responsible for $14 million of dead money. As disappointing as Laken has been this year, and considering he’s being paid top 5 left guard money, he’s been disappointing, I think he’ll be back next year.

According to PFF, Laken is the 23rd-best guard in football in terms of pass blocking this year, the 54th-best run-blocking guard, and the 26th-best guard overall. The Jets are paying for significantly more production, but I’d say that Tomlinson is going to be given the chance to a bounceback in 2023, if the production doesn’t improve then he’ll almost certainly be cut ahead of the 2024 season where his guaranteed salary runs out.

I’m not sure why Laken has struggled so much this year, but he’s been noticeably bad in the running game. He misses his blocks when he’s pulling, he often gets pushed back onto his heels and his balance has all but disappeared in both the passing game and the running game. All the changes on the offensive line won’t have helped anyone, and the hope will be that with more stability next year his performances will improve.

Mekhi Becton

Becton will be entering the final year of his rookie contract next season with a lot to prove. The Jets will likely go into the season hoping to see Becton on the field, but they would be fools to rely upon him.

At the end of this season, the Jets will need to make a decision about Becton’s 5th-year option and it seems almost certain that they won’t exercise it. Becton has appeared in just 15 games over the last 3 years, and next year he’ll have played in just 1 game in 2 seasons.

Becton had a promising rookie season and the Jets will be hoping he’ll be able to stay healthy for 2023 but are you really expecting that? 'I’m wishing Mekhi all the best, but I’ll believe he can stay healthy when he actually stays healthy.

Duane Brown

If we’re looking at the PFF rankings then Brown is the 33rd-best pass-blocking tackle, the 85-best run-blocking tackle, and the 71st-best overall tackle.

Brown is definitely in the cut candidate pile for the Jets considering they can save around $5 million this season with the rest of the contract being paid over the next two years in liabilities.

Entering his age-39 season I’d be surprised to see Brown back with the team, and he may even choose to retire at the end of the season.

Free Agents

Of all the free agents, Connor McGovern is perhaps the most interesting name. Based on a minimum of 200 snaps played, McGovern is ranked as the 20th-best pass-blocking center, the 10th-best run-blocking center, and the 10th-best overall center. That’s not too bad considering there are 43 players on that list. The issue is that he’s trending in the wrong direction as the season gets down to the crunch period.

McGovern has given up 10 pressures and 2 sacks over the last 3 games, having allowed 2 sacks and 13 pressures over the first 12. The game against Jacksonville was statistically his worst game as a member of the Jets, it was the first time he’d ever allowed multiple sacks and 5 pressures. Hopefully, we can chalk it up to a bad day, but his performances in recent weeks have made me nervous about re-signing him.

One other thing I’ve noticed is that the Jets seem to have a lot of miscommunication on the line, it’s something we saw last year and we’ve continued to see it this year. Either the blocking system is too difficult to understand as a unit, or the players aren’t communicating very well, and that usually rests on the center as the player, who’s well, in the center of it all.

The issue for the Jets is there aren’t a lot of alternatives on the free-agent market and the grass isn’t always greener. Rodney Hudson is in the twilight of his career and hasn’t played since week 4 this year. The Jets line has been hit by injury after injury, but McGovern’s health record is actually very good, and you know what they say about the best ability being availability, well that rings true for the Jets.

Jason Kelce is a free agent, but his choice will be the Eagles or retirement, so we can forget that one.

We’ll get to see a potential replacement this weekend as the Jets head to Seattle. Seahawks center Austin Blythe is set to be a free agent and his stats look very similar to Connor’s, although he’s rated as the 37th-best center due to his lackluster running game performance.

Despite his performances over the last week or two, I’ve seen plenty of good from McGovern over the years here so I’d be looking to re-sign him.

Nate Herbig

Herbig has had a couple of poor weeks in terms of pass protection and it’ll be interesting to see how he performs when Mike White is back under center. Herbig had allowed 3 pressures over his last 6 games entering the Detroit game, and he’s allowed 10 pressures over the last two. Not to put anything else on Zach, but when you play in a rhythm offense you expect the ball to come out at a certain point, if it doesn’t then that ruins your timing. The line hasn’t been a solid unit all year with so many injuries, but over the last two weeks, its looked lost. I’m intrigued to see how it looks with Mike out there getting rid of the ball in 2.5 seconds, and with more of a passing game will the running lanes be easier to open against fewer bodies? That’s the key question for the Seattle game.

George Fant

After allowing 18 pressures and 1 sack over nearly 600 pass-blocking snaps last year, Fant has allowed 23 pressures and 4 sacks in just 321 pass-blocking snaps this year. Either he has regressed a considerable amount, or he’s playing hurt. Having spoken to a couple of people closer to the team than I am, and having heard Saleh talk about players playing through pain at the moment, I think it’s clear that George is less than 100%.

Fant is currently working through the worst year of his career since his rookie year in 2016 when he was transforming from a tight end to a tackle. Unfortunately for George, that’s coming at the worst possible time with him about to hit free agency. Some team will likely overpay Fant based on his 2021 season and I’m pretty sure that’s not going to be the Jets.

Plan

Tackle is the area the Jets need to improve more than any other. If they decided to re-sign Connor McGovern and Nate Herbig, along with someone like Dan Feeney, then with AVT and Laken and a potential later-round draft pick, the interior of the line is sorted. I think that’s likely what we’re going to see this year.

The outside is a bigger question mark. Mitchell and Becton will be back next year, but I’d be hesitant to pencil in either as a starter. This means we have at least one but likely two tackle spots to fill.

Free agency is a bit bare when it comes to tackles. Elgton Jenkins may be the best of the bunch, and he’s spent the majority of his career as a guard. His versatility to play every single position along the offensive line would be appealing though. Mike McGlinchey over in San Francisco is a name to watch considering his experience in the system, although he’s be seen as a right tackle and right tackle only.

Orlandon Brown Jr is having a much better second half of the season, but I’d still be somewhat reluctant to hand him the bag considering his inconsistent play.

More likely, we’ll see the Jets attack the position in the draft again. Having seen what we’ve seen this year, I’m all on board with taking a tackle in the first round of the draft. Peter Skoronski from Northwestern is widely considered the best tackle prospect in the draft and if he fell to the Jets I’d be pretty damn happy.

Outside of Skoronski, you have the pair from Ohio State (Jones and Johnson) and plenty of others. If you want a tackle, this is the draft to get them. There may not be a top 5 type talent, but there are plenty of guys around rounds 1-2 that will likely be good NFL starters from day one. One guy I really like is Cody Mauch from North Dakota State, and you’ll be hearing a lot more about him over the coming months.