oline issue from jetX

[rangerous]

i tend to agree.  i discounted lewan's comments mainly because how did carter manage to keep his job for five seasons with the titans?  but it makes sense because lewans seems to be saying he didn't get along with the vets.  the jets oline is just about all verts and they need to be treated differently than the younger guys like tipp or fashanu.  it's probably pretty easy to launch carter.  middleton could be the oline coach.

 

NY Jets’ most baffling offensive addition is costing them dearly

By Michael Nania

Oct 7, 2024 - 11:20 am

On paper, the current makeup of the New York Jets’ offensive depth chart was hard to criticize entering the 2024 season. Most of their roster moves were praised in the 2024 offseason, leading to a unit that looked poised for a strong season.

That has not transpired five weeks into the year. Countless players are underperforming relative to their standards, which has resulted in fingers being pointed at the coaching staff. It is there where you will find the most indefensible addition to the Jets’ offensive infrastructure. The Jets are paying the price for not only adding him in the first place, but sticking with him.

It is not Nathaniel Hackett. While Hackett was a strongly questionable hire in his own right, he was not even the team’s most questionable coaching hire in 2023. At least Hackett brought Aaron Rodgers with him. This other coach brought nothing but controversy with him.

Later in the 2023 offseason, the Jets hired Keith Carter as their new offensive line coach. Carter held the same role for the Tennessee Titans over the previous five seasons (2018-22).

Carter was tasked with rebuilding a Jets offensive line that had crumbled to dust over the past few seasons. It was an enormously important role for a team preparing to employ a 19th-year quarterback.

It was puzzling to see the Jets choose Carter for such a critical position when considering his track record. The hire was immediately viewed as questionable due to Carter’s poor reputation among former players.

Former Titans left tackle Taylor Lewan reacted live to the news of Carter being hired by the Jets, and he bluntly stated that he had a rocky relationship with his former coach. Lewan even stated that Carter was “disrespectful” and compared his coaching to a “dictatorship.”

“Keith and I have had a very up-and-down relationship, and I think it’s ended at a much higher point,” Lewan said. “When Keith first got there, the way he came in and the way he was trying to act towards everybody, like very disrespectful… very authoritative, but in a very like dictatorship-type of way.”

Lewan also stated that Carter had “impossible standards.”

“Sometimes [as a player] you just want a pat on the back, and you never truly get that [with Carter],” Lewan said.

In fairness to Carter, Lewan praised his growth, saying he “grew every single year.” But Lewan was also critical of the toll Carter’s practices took on veteran players’ bodies.

“I just wish he focused a little bit more on taking care of the older players,” Lewan said. “I think Ben [Jones] got a little more of that towards the end, and then I kind of did this year, but those practices are hard, and they wear on your body, and they wear your tires out really fast. And you can see it towards the end of the season sometimes.”

On top of Lewan’s concerning comments, Carter was coming off a season in which the Titans’ offensive line graded out as the worst in the NFL at Pro Football Focus. He led them to better results over his first four years, achieving an average ranking of 12th and never falling below 16th, but the Titans had invested a good amount of capital into their offensive line, and they also had Derrick Henry in the backfield to make them look better on the ground. The unit never really stood out as anything special despite a strong infrastructure of talent, both within the line itself and the surrounding positions on offense.

Carter proceeded to have a rocky debut season with the Jets. New York finished with PFF’s 31st-ranked offensive line, giving Carter his second consecutive bottom-2 finish.

To be fair, the Jets dealt with a plethora of injuries, but part of Lewan’s criticism was that Carter’s practices put players at an increased risk of injury. Not to mention, the Jets’ offensive line was already drawing immense criticism from the media for its lack of cohesion in training camp, long before any injuries struck. The Jets’ porous offensive line play was one of the main storylines on “Hard Knocks,” resulting in Robert Saleh’s infamous rant.

In January 2024, following the end of Carter’s unsuccessful debut season in New York, multiple current and former players – including some players who were with the Jets at the time – began throwing shade at Carter.

Jets running back Breece Hall was among those who appeared to agree with criticisms of Carter. It began with Lewan again taking shots at Carter, as Lewan reacted to the Titans’ firing of former head coach Mike Vrabel by saying he “loved his coaching staff besides Keith Carter.” Hall then responded to Lewan’s post with laughing emojis in a since-deleted tweet.

In another since-deleted comment, then-Jets left tackle Mekhi Becton replied to Lewan’s post by saying his criticism of Carter was “nothing but facts.”

Former All-Pro fullback Pat DiMarco, who played for Carter in Atlanta, replied to Lewan’s post by commenting that “Keith Carter was nobody’s favorite coach and I can say that with a lot of confidence.”

Despite all of this – criticism from former players leading into his first season, back-to-back bottom-2 finishes, more injury struggles under Carter’s watch, and further criticism from current players after his first season – the Jets brought Carter back for the 2024 season. Saleh even said that Carter did a “really nice job” in 2023.

Saleh’s decision to retain Carter was panned by fans and media members alike. It was even more baffling than his decision to hire Carter, as everything that made Carter so unappealing in the first place was only further affirmed with his performance in 2023.

Lo and behold, Saleh’s choice to stick with a bad coach has led to bad results. As we sit here five games into the 2024 season, Carter continues to be an apparent liability for New York.

The Jets loaded their offensive line with talent in the offseason, building what appeared to be their strongest unit in over a decade. The unit has remained mostly healthy through five weeks, as four of the five starters have not missed a game. Yet, all of a sudden, it looks like each member of the unit forgot how to play football.

This is especially true in the run game. The Jets’ run-blocking has been utterly horrendous this season, as New York ranks 31st in the NFL with 0.5 yards before contact per rush attempt, according to NFL Next Gen Stats. The image of Braelon Allen at the top of this article is a glimpse of what the offensive line has given the running backs on a routine basis this year. And it doesn’t even appear to be a product of poor individual execution; it’s mainly due to botched assignments allowing unblocked defenders to get into the backfield. Players rarely appear to be on the same page.

The Jets started off strong in pass protection but have taken a steep nosedive over the last two weeks against a pair of blitz-heavy opponents. Unblocked blitzers are flying into the backfield with ease as the offensive line continuously fails to execute routine pickups. New York ranks only 21st in PFF’s pass-blocking grade.

It makes no sense that all of this should be possible with the talent the Jets have, especially with their unit staying mostly healthy so far. When you do the math, it all points back to Carter.

I calculate the impact of coaching using a simple formula: “Talent – Results = Coaching.” The Jets have the talent to be a top-10 offensive line based on how well each of their players performed in 2023. Now, they are suddenly a bottom-2 run-blocking team and a bottom-12 pass-blocking team.

Did all of these talented players just magically decide to start playing below expectations at the same time?

No. They just all happen to be playing under Keith Carter.

It’s yet another indictment on Robert Saleh. He hired Carter, and then he stubbornly stuck with him after a terrible season. And, what do you know, he is producing terrible results yet again. Who could have seen this coming? Clearly not Robert Saleh.

The Robert Saleh regime continues to be one of the worst in the NFL.

[JetPotato]

The league was laughing at the Jets when Carter was hired. They did it anyway.

[BreeceHallofFame]

Golden boy Vrabel had Carter as his OLine coach for 4 years in a stretch were they were top 5 in rushing every year expect the last (13th). When he fired Carter they were still 13th and it got Vrabel fired.