Rewatched the game focusing on the O-Line. My thoughts:

[THE BARON]

1 hour ago, jetscrazey said:

1) The first takeaway is that if we ever want an elite OL, McGovern and Van Roten need to go.  These guys are JAGs with no upside who consistently get pushed into the backfield, whether it's a run or pass.  Particularly McGovern who does not have great upper body strength seems to be 2 yards into the backfield after every snap.  Van Roten is never gonna be a guy you feel good running behind either, he's just very mediocre.  The Jets have 4 picks in the first 2 rounds and I fully expect them to draft/sign a new guard and center this offseason.

 

2) 2nd takeaway is that George Fant is not a good pass blocker from the RT position, got beat a quite a bit, and he also needs to go.  It's hard to see how Morgan Moses could have been any worse than Fant, at least Moses brings more upside in the running game.  Fant can do neither run or pass blocking that well, so I'm not sure why he was out there.  It was bad coaching to start Fant over Moses.  We know what we have in Fant and it's nothing great.

 

3) 3rd takeaway is the left side (AVT + Becton) actually had a decent day run blocking, but a bad day pass blocking.  They were the only 2 guys getting decent push on running plays, and I don't think the Jets stayed committed enough to running behind these 2 guys specifically.  I'd like to see more downhill blocking and less outside zone with these maulers,.  However on pass blocking they were not very good.  Becton singlehandedly killed 2 drives in the first half allowing bad sacks (one was a mental breakdown where he didn't even block anyone.)  AVT also had a bad miscue not picking up a blitzing DB thru his gap (focusing on a double team with McGovern instead) which blew up a drive.

 

4) 4th takeaway is that Mike LaFleur likes to use tight formations (meaning WRs are not split out wide - they are close to the OL) on inside running plays, which makes no sense to me because it makes it easier for the defensive backfield to converge on the runner more quickly.  LaFleur did a terrible job of giving the RBs space to work with on the play designs.  He also needs to call more downfield running behind Becton/AVT, the outside zone thing is not going to work as well with guys like these.

 

5) 5th takeaway is that Tevin Coleman blew a key 3rd down blitz pickup that also killed a drive.  Coleman on the whole seems slower, I look for Michael Carter to take the starting job and run with it soon.

 

Overall, the OL, tight ends, and receivers did not look like they wanted it as bad as the Panthers defense.  They were consistently losing the point of attack and missing on blocks.  There just didn't seem to be much fire in this unit.  It was a team effort of crappy play, however I feel better about AVT and Becton than I do about McGovern, Van Roten, and Fant, who all need to go.

My takeaway was this... Next off-season and draft has to focus on the offensive line.  McGovern is a back-up quality player and Van Roten looks like he's on vacation.  After having centers like Joe Fields, Jim Sweeney, Kevin Mawae & Nick Mangold, this just looks horrible.   AVT looks raw and Becton looks slow and ungainly while pass blocking and not nearly the world class run blocker that was hoped for.  Fant and Moses are not elite but neither are they scrubs technically speaking, but when the interior of your line is lost, the guys on the ends will never look good. 

Add to all of that, the line has not played together due to injuries.  They may improve as a unit. 

Now the real concern is this... And I do mean real.

Brand new QB Wilson's career is already in danger.  He has good pocket awareness and good smarts.  That still wont be enough to keep him in one piece for very long behind what is clearly one of the worst pass blocking and run blocking lines in the league.   

Did you see his head bounce off the turf yesterday ??? A few more of those and he'll be wondering who and where he is.

For the time being, Wilson's career needs to be the priority.  They need to scrap the offence they want to run for now and go two with two TE's and at least one guy in the backfield that knows how to block.

Wilson showed tremendous guts yesterday.  This is a young rookie in his first game behind an embarrassingly bad line.  Considering that, I give him an "A" just for keeping his head and his balls.

Run a different offence until they can fix the problems or Wilson will be done early.  

'Nuff said. 

[freestater]

47 minutes ago, clayton163v said:

I love this optimism.  I truly do.  And I believe a priority must be to build the offensive line.

But Jack Conklin, Corey Lindsley and Trent Williams were never going to come to a bottom five NFL team.  These are desirable starters with plenty of tread on the tire.  Why on earth would they sign with the Jets when they will get comparable offers elsewhere?  Especially for an offensive lineman.  They know it is a five to six man dance, not one-on-one.  When there are weak links getting pushed around, guys get rolled up just like our expensive young Mr. Becton.  Had Trent Williams decided to sign with the Jets, the exact same thing would have happened to him.   The left tackle cannot block the interior too.  I note that the Panther Center - Matt Paradis - refused to sign with us and we ended up with McGovern who was the second best guy on the market.  We paid up for him too.  Paradis beat the snot out of us yesterday.  Bad teams cannot sign the good players unless they back up the truck.  After Trumaine Johnson, Bell and - yes - CJ Mosley we know a single player cannot turn things around.   We need to draft and extend our own people.    

The only way out of our offensive line hell is the draft.  What I saw yesterday convinced me that AVT may be part of the answer in the long run, but he is not going to be a force anytime soon.  The draft capital we spent on him would have yielded three starters had we simply kept to the value board.  We would not have had to throw them into the game either.  We could have still started Lewis, McGovern and Van Roten.  But at least there would be a  $$&^ing backup plan.  My problem is not with AVT - though I do question the wisdom of starting Becton and AVT after missing all or part of preseason.  They were not ready and it showed..  Not that we had any choice whatsoever.  Can you imagine if we threw in the backups?  And there were answers in the draft THIS SEASON.  Just kills me.

Look at the Chiefs.  They took their C Creed Humphrey in the 2d, their RT Louis Niang in the 3d and their RG Trey Smith in the 6th.  They also signed Thuney (he was NEVER coming here fellas) and traded for Orlando Brown.  A whole starting offensive line in one shopping spree.  A good one too (for gap schemes).   Could the Jets have gotten Brown and Thuney?  Not if either of them had any say in it.   Could we have drafted Humphrey, Niang and Smith?  Yes.  And it is exactly the sort of heavy - yet shrewd - investment we need if our line is ever going to gel.  Now Niang and Smith are not fits for the zone scheme, but there were multiple guys available who were fits and who went in the 3d round.  Wonderful Guard/Centers like Menerz and Green and the RT candidate Spencer Brown went in the third.  The Bills did not even need Brown and put him into the wine celler for seasoning.  These guys would have been bona-fide possible answers for the Jets if our 1s fail.  We have no answers, just veterans who are worse than the starters.  

Another whole season where we are playing band aids like Van Roten and people who are VERY likely to depart in free agency next year in Fant and Moses.  A whole year of snaps given to people who will not even be on the $^$&*%$ing team next season.  It doesn't have to be this way.  Our bench lacks any decent starting prospects.  I love what I saw from Grant Hermanns in the preseason, but he is still an UDFA.  Yet he is the best young OL prospect on the Jets this season after AVT.  That is just unacceptable.   We were not a good line.  How can you rebuild the #^&$%$ing team if your bench lacks decent starting prospects?  

Of all the teams in the league the Jets were the one team that should not have moved up early in the draft.   We just had too many needs.  Those two third round picks and the late first would have yielded all the help we needed.  Yes, I know we got back a late 4th (63 spots behind the late 3d we gave up).  But the starting interior prospects were gone by then (we could have taken Drew Dalman in the 4th instead of MC1).  We had the backs but we lacked interior OL prospects and Ray Charles could see it.  Instead, we play Van Roten who is not part of the future.  We also start both Moses and Fant and they are going to leave. 

Just criminal not to have some decent draft picks to insert as plan B.  

 

We may have to get used to the notion that JD is simply not good at drafting. 

[Be_a_Jet]

There was just no way we were gunna get Thuney guys. So I don't blame JD for not being able to get him. 

 

Linsley could've and should've been ours though. I think this was a product of Douglas being overconfident and settling with CMG for financial reasons and just convincing himself he's good enough.  

 

I agree with others here, have to drop BIG money on a OL next year idc what it is, and keep drafting OL in top two rounds every year. Enough is enough already

 

 

Anyone have an idea what OL will be available in FA next year?

[Jethead]

For all you grass is greener guys, Conklin absolutely sucked yesterday.

[Matt39]

What is this answer 

[chirorob]

1 hour ago, KO91 said:

This goes back to the off-season. Should have handed a blank check to Thuney or Lindley. 

Thuney was not coming here.  He is now the highest paid guard in the league on the team that went to back to back super bowls.   There is no way to compete with that.

But yes, we really need more O line help.

[freestater]

24 minutes ago, Matt39 said:

What is this answer 

So...its Zach's fault you were in his lap in 0.7 seconds each snap, Connor? Ok. 

[Sperm Edwards]

1 hour ago, jetscrazey said:

Exactly.  The very fact they signed Moses was an indictment on Fant.  Fant's cap # is over $9 million this year, he's one of the most overpaid people on the team.  Moses was a respected player in Washington, give him a chance.

Partly. I think it was also a hedge on Becton as well, since his headlines at the time of the Moses signing weren't that great.

Then he probably figured he'd do his Trader Joe's thing, where (if Becton/Moses were healthy and playing well at the time) he could pry a decent draft pick from a contender who just lost its LT in Sept/Oct. 

[Drums]

I thought McGovern should have been replaced this offseason but when they kept him I thought maybe I just missed something. Nope. Sadly there have been chances in FA and the draft to upgrade at center but here we are. 

[Drums]

11 minutes ago, freestater said:

So...its Zach's fault you were in his lap in 0.7 seconds each snap, Connor? Ok. 

What he meant there was with a rookie QB, teams are going to blitz the sh*t out of you. So now we get to see NE come in and do the same damn thing. Yay. 

[Drums]

So tired of hearing “we were prepared, just need to execute better” for the last three fuggin years. Get a new excuse

[jetsjets]

The Oline is a hot mess(still) we need to draft a LT and move Becton to guard resign Moses and blow the rest up 

[C Mart]

3 hours ago, jetscrazey said:

1) The first takeaway is that if we ever want an elite OL, McGovern and Van Roten need to go.  These guys are JAGs with no upside who consistently get pushed into the backfield, whether it's a run or pass.  Particularly McGovern who does not have great upper body strength seems to be 2 yards into the backfield after every snap.  Van Roten is never gonna be a guy you feel good running behind either, he's just very mediocre.  The Jets have 4 picks in the first 2 rounds and I fully expect them to draft/sign a new guard and center this offseason.

2) 2nd takeaway is that George Fant is not a good pass blocker from the RT position, got beat a quite a bit, and he also needs to go.  It's hard to see how Morgan Moses could have been any worse than Fant, at least Moses brings more upside in the running game.  Fant can do neither run or pass blocking that well, so I'm not sure why he was out there.  It was bad coaching to start Fant over Moses.  We know what we have in Fant and it's nothing great.

3) 3rd takeaway is the left side (AVT + Becton) actually had a decent day run blocking, but a bad day pass blocking.  They were the only 2 guys getting decent push on running plays, and I don't think the Jets stayed committed enough to running behind these 2 guys specifically.  I'd like to see more downhill blocking and less outside zone with these maulers,.  However on pass blocking they were not very good.  Becton singlehandedly killed 2 drives in the first half allowing bad sacks (one was a mental breakdown where he didn't even block anyone.)  AVT also had a bad miscue not picking up a blitzing DB thru his gap (focusing on a double team with McGovern instead) which blew up a drive.

4) 4th takeaway is that Mike LaFleur likes to use tight formations (meaning WRs are not split out wide - they are close to the OL) on inside running plays, which makes no sense to me because it makes it easier for the defensive backfield to converge on the runner more quickly.  LaFleur did a terrible job of giving the RBs space to work with on the play designs.  He also needs to call more downfield running behind Becton/AVT, the outside zone thing is not going to work as well with guys like these.

Overall, the OL, tight ends, and receivers did not look like they wanted it as bad as the Panthers defense.  They were consistently losing the point of attack and missing on blocks.  There just didn't seem to be much fire in this unit.  It was a team effort of crappy play, however I feel better about AVT and Becton than I do about McGovern, Van Roten, and Fant, who all need to go.

It's all related however the OL coach Benton is the run game coordinator..

 

John Benton

OFFENSIVE LINE & RUN GAME COORDINATOR

For Benton, he has been directing offensive lines in the NFL since 2004, lines that have blocked for top 10 rushing offenses seven times in the last 11 seasons, including each of the last three seasons.

Over Benton's four seasons in San Francisco (2017-20) as the offensive line coach, the 49ers produced the fourth most rushing yards in the league, with top 10 rushing offenses in each of the last three season, including the league's number one rushing attack in 2019 as they advanced Super Bowl LIV

https://www.newyorkjets.com/team/coaches-roster/john-benton

[Scotty Wooty Doo Doo]

47 minutes ago, chirorob said:

Thuney was not coming here.  He is now the highest paid guard in the league on the team that went to back to back super bowls.   There is no way to compete with that.

But yes, we really need more O line help.

Yeah , but they never even contacted Lindsey .

[Sperm Edwards]

3 minutes ago, Drums said:

I thought McGovern should have been replaced this offseason but when they kept him I thought maybe I just missed something. Nope. Sadly there have been chances in FA and the draft to upgrade at center but here we are. 

His considerable salary was 100% guaranteed this year. That was always an extreme long shot to see him on the bench, and no one else was absorbing that contract. 

What's so upsetting about the elite veteran players Douglas passed on at C and RT is that he ended up spending just as much money on those positions anyway with his hedge bets. Instead of $13MM-ish 1st team all pros at C and RT he signed lesser starters (in Fant's case he wasn't even a starting tackle in Seattle) for $9MM apiece, and then signed backups at their positions in the $4MM range. The cost differential is a rounding error. 

[vic]

Agree totally with Columbia Jet Fan, Wilson is the future and to see him manhandled because of horrible o-line play made me cringe. Something must be done and soon, with Becton out for an extended period of time the situation becomes even more dire. Joe has to do something, trades, draft picks or whatever it takes.


Sent from my iPad using JetNation.com mobile app

[JETSALLDAY24X]

I just re-watched the game rather than add to the 20 other inevitable "Thoughts after re-watch threads" I'll just post them in here. 

1. Concerns over the oline, The talk of Becton's bad camp were greatly exaggerated. He was far and away the best lineman on the field for us There was plays here and there was where he got beat but was least of Olines problems. AVT had a bad a game but forgiven (First game) McGovern, Van Roten, Fant. Holy Hell these guys are bad. Fant was shockingly awful, Small Sample size but Mosses looked far better at RT when he came in. This group needs to take a massive leap forward the rest of the year and next year or Joe Douglas is on the hot seat at next year's end. 

 

2. The Corners were very impressive, Hall Carter Echols were all impressive. The Anderson TD was on the safety. 

3. Zach Wilson despite being plagued by drops and bad oline played pretty well and showed his grit and leadership to rally the troops. 

4. The front 7 was terrible, Dline+Linebackers We're non existent. Franklin-Myers and Foley were 2 bright spots.

5.Coaches did a good job making adjustments at halftime and getting more aggressive. 

6. Just throw Denzel Mims the damn ball! 

[chirorob]

43 minutes ago, Scotty Wooty Doo Doo said:

Yeah , but they never even contacted Lindsey .

Not arguing that one

[Snook]

3 hours ago, Larz said:

I missed the first half. 
 

Lucky you

[Sperm Edwards]

2 hours ago, TheClashFan said:

I wanted Conklin badly, too...but as has been pointed out, maybe guys like him and Thuney really don't want to sign and play with teams like the Jets. Still, Conklin signed for less than expected, IIRC, so why was that?

I was among those hoping JD would double dip at OL and WR in JD's first draft in the third round...there were still quality players on the board...but he got "cute" and ended up taking two guys on defense who are looking like total busts and can't even get on the field now. He tried to draft "a little bit of everything" a round too early.  He should be drafting three OL per draft until he gets a "good" line in place.  Instead, he's drafting at half that rate. Many of us have been hoping for a young stud C to be drafted.

To his credit, he has taken first round OL in each of his first two drafts, but after that seems to want go to relatively "on the cheap" like Mac did.  The OL probably will look a bit better as the season goes on, but with Becton out, there's just one young promising OL starting, and none of the other young guys looks particularly promising.  A bunch of JAGs and worse. He seems to really overrate McGovern, who needs to move to G.

 

Conklin signed with the then-Clowns, who were then one of those "teams like the Jets" at the time. That argument works with Thuney because he went to the Chiefs, or say a QB like Cousins when the team actively pursued him and came up short.

Conklin was linked to the Jets that whole pre-FA period all the way from late Feb through mid-March, for major dollars, allegedly with mutual interest. Did Douglas even make him an offer? If yes, was it a legit one or did a Douglas "offer" cap out at $11.5MM per with low guarantees? 

[Ecuadorian Jet]

I can´t EFFIN believe that we are talking about the offseason. 

[LionelRichie]

1 hour ago, Drums said:

I thought McGovern should have been replaced this offseason but when they kept him I thought maybe I just missed something. Nope. Sadly there have been chances in FA and the draft to upgrade at center but here we are. 

in fairness, I think they expected Lewis to be the starter which brings with it its own set of questions.   Overall a total JD failure to have this poor of an OL with a rookie QB and 3 years to build it.   This is how you ruin rookie QB's.   If the OL was going to be this bad they should have just signed a vet QB and let Wilson watch rather than watch him get killed every week.