Joe Douglas has talked about building the Jets’ offensive line since the day he arrived as the team’s general manager in 2019 … literally.
This is what Douglas said at his introductory press conference that June: “This is a game of wills. And we’re going to try to build a team that can impose their will on other teams, and to do that you have to be strong up front, not just on the offensive line but the defensive line.”
But here we are in 2024, and Douglas still needs to build the offensive line, and this offseason, it is a massive rebuild.
Douglas needs to find three starters after the release of veteran guard Laken Tomlinson last week.
Mekhi Becton and Duane Brown are free agents who are not expected to return.
Through free agency and the draft, the Jets will need to add either two guards or two tackles, depending on where the team decides to play Alijah Vera-Tucker.
“It’s a lot of pieces,” Douglas said this week at the NFL Scouting Combine. “At the same time we just had some unbelievable meetings with our coaching staff, free-agent meetings. There’s three different avenues that we can do this: trade, free agency and draft. So going through where we are, the flexibility, going through the meetings that we just went through, the flexibility of AVT, feel like there’s some guys that can come in and be the right type of fit for us in terms of the intelligence, toughness, reliability.
“There’s some good candidates out there that can come in and help us.”
The offensive line prospects in the 2024 draft will be on display Sunday in Indianapolis as that group goes through drills at the combine.
Jets coach Robert Saleh joined Douglas there on Saturday and will watch the linemen go through drills.
The expectation is the Jets will get one of the top three tackles at No. 10 overall.
Notre Dame’s Joe Alt, Penn State’s Olu Fashanu and Oregon State’s Taliese Fuaga are all considered potential top-10 picks by draft experts.
All of them were asked about playing with quarterback Aaron Rodgers on Saturday and expressed excitement at that possibility.
The good news for the Jets is this draft has plenty of strong offensive line candidates.
NFL Network draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah has seven offensive linemen in his top 20.
“It’s a loaded tackle class,” Jeremiah said last week. “Just in terms of that top group, there’s 10, 11 guys that are really interesting. I think we’ll see a bunch of Day 1 starters out of that tackle group.”
Before we get to the draft, the Jets will be searching for answers in free agency.
The tackle class is not a strong one, but there are some good guards available.
Kevin Dotson of the Rams and Robert Hunt of the Dolphins should both get big contracts.
Patriots lineman Mike Onwenu has flexibility to play both guard and tackle, which could land him big money.
Douglas has been down this road before. He remade the offensive line in 2020. That time, he was clearly searching for value.
He did not sign top-of-the-market tackle Jack Conklin, to the disappointment of Jets fans.
Instead he went bargain hunting and signed center Connor McGovern, tackle George Fant and guard Greg Van Roten.
He drafted Becton to play left tackle a month later.
McGovern and Fant had some good moments for the Jets.
Van Roten was cut after two seasons.
Becton has been a disappointment and will be moving to another team in free agency.
The Jets are one of many teams looking to improve along the offensive line, so the prices could escalate quickly.
The Raiders, Dolphins, Titans and Ravens all have big needs on the line.
Douglas pointed to the flexibility afforded to them by Vera-Tucker as a key this week.
If the Jets think they can get two guards in free agency, they can put Vera-Tucker at tackle.
If they end up with a tackle and a guard, they can put him at guard.
“I think we’re in a really good situation because particularly of the flexibility that AVT provides us,” Douglas said. “We don’t have any decision on exactly where he’s going to line up. But his ability to play four different spots and four different spots well gives us a lot of flexibility moving forward [with] our roster building, O-line building. But the one thing we’re going to do this year, we’re not going to move AVT around.
“We’re going to have a spot for him and leave him there for the season.”
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Brian Costello
