The free hand is mostly over. In the coming weeks and months, the remaining players will find new teams. One or two key players can be added for a particular team. There may also be an unexpected cut or swap, but most veteran player roster movements have ended. Now the focus is on the NFL Draft. This phase of the offseason seems as good a time as any to provide a progress report on the steps the Jets have been making.
- I think it’s important to remember that agency is one of many mechanisms available to a team to improve.
A lot of digital ink was spilled a few months ago praising the Bengals’ “all-in” approach to the free hand a year ago and the way these players helped end the Super Bowl run of the to fuel teams. Cincinnati added Trey Hendrickson, Chidobe Awuzie, Mike Hilton, Reilly Reiff and Larry Ogunjobi. All five played a role in improving the Bengals. Although Reiff and Ogunjobi were injured for the team’s playoff run, their contributions helped Bengals bench wins during the regular season to qualify.
It’s worth noting that the most guaranteed money the Bengals gave to any free-agent import was the $16 million that Trey Hendrickson received. Additionally, Hendrickson was the only Bengal guaranteed up to $8 million last year. In 2021, there were seventeen teams in the league that gave newly signed players more guarantees than the Bengals.
The Bengals aren’t entirely alone, either. Let’s take a look at the biggest single-season turnarounds over the past decade. The 2017 Rams issued the 13th guaranteed free agent money in the year of their promotion. The Texans were 11th a year later. The Texans from four years earlier finished 24th. The 2018 Browns finished 8th. The 2015 Panthers finished 27th. The 2019 49ers finished 11th. The 2016 Cowboys finished 19th.
The point here is that free agency is a useful tool. Smart signings can improve your football team, but generous spending never seems to be THE driving force behind major turnarounds. Achieving these requires combining smart signings with good drafting, player development, injury luck, favorable schedules, improved coaching, and working the waiver wire.
- It’s interesting to see how narratives can shape perceptions. Through the media, Joe Douglas has cultivated the image of a thrifty general manager. His supporters in the fanbase and media call him disciplined and unwilling to go beyond what he thinks is fair. His critics call him cheap and unable to get things going.
However, this may not be the reality. Douglas’ free agency in 2022 was decidedly un-Bengalese. The Jets issued four contracts with guarantees in excess of $10 million.
Total guarantees of $75.5 million give the Jets the fifth-highest total in the league. This came a year after the Jets posted $86 million in guarantees, ranking third. Jacksonville is the only other team to have finished in the top five for the past two years.
Whether this approach will be successful remains to be seen, but Douglas’ image certainly does not appear to be a place where perception and reality intertwine.
Comparisons with its predecessor could also play a role. What Douglas doesn’t do, like Mike Maccagnan, is give market re-hiring contracts to big names. However, he is very aggressive in targeting players he wants and willing to shell out quite a bit to win them over.
- I have already written and spoken at length about my views on the Jets’ need to add a proven receiver and their failure to do so. With that in mind, I’ll spare you a long recap. If you are interested, you can click on the links. However, an off-season review wouldn’t be complete without addressing what I feel should be the top priority, so I’ll just provide a quick summary. There are paths to success at wide receiver for the Jets, but this one takes a bit of luck. A veteran must enter the trade market unexpectedly, and the Jets must be able to execute a deal. If that doesn’t happen, a young player has to play at a level he’s never played at in the NFL. This seems like a risky approach for a position the Jets clearly can’t afford to fail at, and I can’t say I was enamored with the process.
- Still, I can’t shake the feeling that years from now we’ll be looking back at the Tyreek Hill saga when the Jets take a break. I fully admit that attitude could age like spoiled milk, but Miami has paid a very heavy price. Will a player whose defining trait is speed age gracefully? Will he have the same impact outside of a Kansas City delivery system set up to maximize his touches in favorable situations? These are pretty glaring questions to me compared to the price Miami paid (and apparently the price the Jets were willing to pay).
- One thing I liked about the Jets’ free agency period is their focus on youth. Four of the six major outside signings are either 25 or 26 years old. Sheeten Tomlinson is the only major signing in his thirties, and he plays a position that appears to have a graceful aging curve. Only CJ Uzomah was on the old side, and this signing just seems like a case where the Jets knew they had to do something on the tight end.
- I don’t want to spoil future articles I’m working on, but I also appreciate the focus on the scheme suited to the players who signed the Jets. There have been many years in the past where the Jets have signed a player and I had no idea how he fit into the system. Worse, a few months later it became clear that the player didn’t really fit into the system. I see a clear scheme that fits almost every Jets signing.
- I find DJ Reed’s signature interesting in that it breaks with the mold. In the early stages of the Saleh era, the focus was clearly on investing in the defensive line and practicing late-round unannounced picks on the corner. This could indicate that the defense is moving in a new direction. Who knows if the rumors about the Jets’ possible pick of Sauce Gardner in the NFL Draft are true? However, if this is the case, it would signal a shift to defense based on strong cornerback play. Is corner now a weakness? I’d say no, but if you turn it into an area of strength with multiple number one corners, it opens up a lot of the playbook for defense. Suddenly you can get a lot more creative with print packs.
- Elsewhere in the secondary school, security is a secret need. Jordan Whitehead should upgrade a security slot. However, Lamarcus Joyner is currently scheduled as a second starter. Joyner is 31 years old. He hasn’t played a regular safety in four years and was on the field for 13 snaps in 2021. His ability to play 900-1,000 snaps is all that stands between the Jets and Ashtyn Davis, who once again becomes the last line of defense.
- Should the Jets draft a tackle this year? I say it depends. Your first instinct might be to say no. It’s not much of a necessity when George Fant is around and Mekhi Becton is returning. I think the answer really depends on how you feel about these guys. Fant turns 30 at the start of the season and is about to enter his final year of contract. It’s not unreasonable to wonder if he’s a long-term player for the Jets. Was last year a sign of a player on the rise or a career year that will lead to a regression? Again, the answer might be less clear-cut than we would like. As for Becton, views among fans seem to be everywhere. It’s not difficult to understand why. I’m not sure if there’s a single result of his 2022 season that would surprise me. If you’re telling me he’s going to make the first Pro Bowl of a long and successful career, I could believe it. If you’re telling me that next year is the beginning of the end of his time with the Jets, I could believe that too. Your views on these two likely drive the need to design a tackle. If you think that the two will be here for another three years and be successful, a duel in the first rounds makes little sense. If not, it’s a logical place to go.
- So what’s the bottom line? Did the Jets do well in free agency? It’s hard for me to say. I have mixed feelings.
There are years when I hated everything the Jets did. Move after move just didn’t make sense in those years, and there didn’t seem to be a plan. I think of offseasons like 2012, 2014 and 2019.
I don’t have that feeling this year. Like I said, I see the logic behind all the steps they’ve taken.
While all of the moves make sense to me individually, overall it just feels a bit overwhelming. After $75 million in guarantees, the team’s Super Bowl odds haven’t really changed.
Of course, as I mentioned earlier, a free hand is only one component of team building, so other opportunities to improve await. March free agency grades are also incomplete. They are based on past performance. Meanwhile, successful signings are coming due to what happens in the future. The best free-agent signings are players who fit better into their new system and are willing to improve unexpectedly. We won’t know for sure until these players take the field. There is always room for hope, and hope is what sustains us this time of year.