On the day after the Jets season ended, coach Robert Saleh said something was “on the forefront of my mind.”
That something may be the single biggest issue that holds the Jets back in 2024 if they don’t find a solution.
The Jets went through 13 different offensive line combinations this season.
They used 14 different starting offensive linemen. They had a stretch from Week 5 through Week 16 during which they used a different starting offensive line in every game.
Besides losing Aaron Rodgers in Week 1, the continuous shuffling of the offensive line was the biggest reason the Jets were 7-10 in 2023.
“There’s definitely a league-wide pandemic with regards to offensive line injuries,” Saleh said. “I’ve been working on this for over a month and a half in terms of just trying to try to find the direction that we need to go. Continue to work on it over the next few months, but that is at the forefront of my mind. It’s a forefront of everybody’s mind to keep those guys healthy. If the O-line’s healthy, the quarterback will be healthy. If the quarterback’s healthy, we’ll all be healthy. It’s definitely something that we’re studying and we’ll get down to hopefully get an answer for.”
The Jets have suffered a rash of offensive line injuries under general manager Joe Douglas and Saleh. They had seven different offensive line combinations in 2021 and nine in 2022.
That means they have had 29 different combinations in their three years together. The year before Saleh got here, the Jets had eight in Adam Gase’s final season with the team.
Saleh and Douglas revamped the Jets’ performance staff in 2021, bringing in Brad DeWeese as the director of high performance and Mike Nicolini as the head strength and conditioning coach as well as several performance coaches. Adding all of that sports science has helped cut down on soft-tissue injuries for the Jets but not overall injuries.
When Douglas arrived in 2019, he said the Jets would get the offensive line fixed.
He has used two first-round picks, a second-round pick and plenty of free-agent money on the position, but they have had a hard time keeping players on the field.
“We’ve invested a lot of resources in that position,” Douglas said. “So, going back, I know I’ve sat here and had conversations with you guys in the past about how much availability is of importance to this group and for the last two years, we’ve been banged up. So, going back and looking at the performance and availability of this group, I feel like I spent so much time trying to prevent the storm from actually coming when it comes to injuries.”
Douglas said he regretted not keeping a 10th offensive lineman out of training camp.
“I think candidly, one of the things I could have done better with the offensive line is keeping an extra offensive lineman,” Douglas said. “Not going into the year with nine offensive linemen, but maybe keeping an extra body there. We still would have had the short four or five guys with all the offensive linemen we played. Again, it’s going to be going back to every single decision-making process and because we have gotten some decisions right there. I feel like we do have a few cornerstone players on that offensive line moving forward and building around those guys and keep adding to the group.”
Looking back, the Jets clearly miscalculated by counting on 38-year-old Duane Brown to be their left tackle.
He started the first two games of the season and then suffered a core muscle injury that limited him to spot duty late in the season.
Alijah Vera-Tucker is their best offensive lineman, but he suffered his second straight season-ending injury in October, tearing his Achilles tendon.
On the positive side, Mekhi Becton, who missed most of the last two years, only missed one game this season. Left guard Laken Tomlinson is the only Jets lineman to start every game. He did not miss a snap.
The right side of the line got hit the hardest. The Jets ended up using seven different starting right guards and five right tackles.
The Jets are studying teams that have had better injury luck than them. The Bills started the same five offensive linemen in every game this season.
“There’s definitely something, something that we’ve been studying over the last couple weeks to try to get a beat on it and try to get a head start, because knock on wood, for the most part, the roster’s been healthy,” Saleh said. “It’s that group for the last two years that’s taken a beating, so there’s definitely information out there that we hope we can merge to keep the roster healthy, but at the same time, there’s something with the O-line group that is different.”
