The Rise of AVT
It can't be understated how impressive AVT has been so far this season after missing significant pre-season time.
🗽Good morning Jets fans and welcome to another edition of The Jet Way. As always thank you for reading, the response so far has been overwhelming and I can’t stress how much I appreciate it. We’re just a few days away from Joe Burrow riding into town and I’m looking forward to it, if we can’t have optimism before the game as a Jets fan, what can we have?
The Man Mountain 🗻
When the Jets drafted AVT with the 14th pick in the NFL draft, Jets nation was absolutely pumped. There were some rocky moments with a pre-season injury keeping him on the sideline and then some growing pains early in the season, but as of today, AVT is not only our best lineman, he’s playing like one of the best offensive guards in the NFL.
Through the first two weeks of the season, PFF had AVT at a 34.7 pass-blocking grade, considering it’s on a scale to 1-100, you don’t need me to point out that’s pretty bad. He had allowed 1 sack and 9 pressures in two games.
Fast forward to week 8 and AVT has still only allowed 1 sack, and his pressure number sits at 14. So through two games it was 9 and through the next 4 he allowed just 5 pressures total. That is absolutely elite. His grade has jumped from 34.7 to 62.8. If you remove the first two weeks from the equation, AVT has a pass-blocking grade of 79.2.
That’s not only significantly better than any other rookie guard who’s taken at least 50% of their team snaps (next best is Kansas’s Trey Smith at 62.8), but that also puts him as the 7th best pass blocking grade in the NFL.
That’s before we even get to his run blocking, which was always well ahead of his pass protection.
Power + Athleticism leads to an elite run blocker.
AVT currently ranks as the 9th best guard in the league in terms of run blocking, excelling in both zone and gap, although his 89.0 rating in gap runs would put him 2nd overall. The Jets as an offense run the majority of their reps in zone (65-70%), but AVT does the job in either.
The Jets as a whole have struggled to run the ball effectively but that’s certainly not because of AVT. You get Becton back on this line and then you add someone like Tyler Linderbaum ( center for Iowa) or Kenyon Green (Guard/Tackle for Texas A&M), the line is ready for take-off.
The saying goes you shouldn’t call a prospect a bust during his rookie season and you probably shouldn’t anoint anyone a star either, but AVT is heading towards the upper echelons of offensive line play in the NFL and I’m here for it.
I’ll have that one back 😳
🏈 On the other end of the scale is this effort by Connor McGovern on Sunday. He gets beaten all ends up and as one follower of mine pointed out, tries to “titty block” the defender. It does not go well.
Notes 📝
🏈 Woody Johnson threw his support behind the GM and coaching staff by saying he has “unwavering, steadfast confidence” in General Manager Joe Douglas, Head Coach Robert Saleh and the rest of the coaching staff. He stressed that “We will get it right. … Just a very young team with a 22-year-old quarterback. He’s seeing things for the first time.”
Slow and steady…
🏈 According to this ESPN study, the Jets are the slowest team in the NFL. People say that speed is key in the modern NFL, well if that is the case, then it’s no surprise to see the Jets sitting at 1-5.
32. New York Jets
Overall average yards per second: 9.19
Offense rank: No. 31 (9.03)
Defense rank: No. 28 (9.34)
Fastest unit relative to NFL: WR (No. 21, 9.69)
Slowest units relative to NFL: RB/LB (No. 30, 8.76/8.64)
Team speedster: Keelan Cole, WR (9.94)
🏈Adam Schefter reported that the Jets released veteran safety Adrian Colbert. Colbert hasn’t been available to the Jets since week 4’s victory over Tennessee.
Work It Out 👟
As mentioned above, the Jets are hurting at linebacker, so it came as little surprise to see that Joe Douglas brought in a number of players for a workout.
Rashaad Coward was the only non-linebacker on the invite list, but he performed poorly when given the chance to start in Chicago.
Following the workouts, the Jets announced that they had signed LaRoy Reynolds to the practice squad.
Reynolds has bounced around the league since going undrafted out of Virginia in 2013. He was most recently with the Patriots in the spring before being released with an injury settlement.
LaRoy was with Atlanta and Jeff Ulbrich in 2020, so there is some familiarity there. He was also with Jacksonville while Saleh was the linebacker coach, so his game won’t be a mystery to anyone at One Jets Drive.
As always I appreciate you taking the time to read. If you liked what you saw, then please do share with your fellow Jets fans.