No Trade Deadline Boost For Flawed Jets Offense
I can’t say I’m all that upset as a Jets fan that General Manager Joe Douglas stood pat on NFL Trade Deadline Day on Tuesday.
But I am a bit surprised.
Trader Joe had made deadline deals in each of his four previous years on the job. He was less successful at buying (Laurent Duvernay-Tardiff and James Robinson did not distinguish themselves) than selling (Leonard Williams and Avery Williamson brought back quality Draft capital). With the current Jets roster, you could argue that he should have done both in advance of Tuesday.
Douglas considered his trade of wide receiver Mecole Hardman, who mostly and been a nonparticipant after signing as a free agent in the offseason, back to Kansas City two weeks ago as an extension of his streak, but he allegedly found no takers for disgruntled running back Dalvin Cook and edge rusher Carl Lawson by the 4pm deadline.
No harm there, since there was a high probability that New York would have had to eat most of the remainder of their contracts for the season, limiting any positive salary cap impact. Both veterans may be unhappy with losing snaps to younger and more effective players, but they’re also one play away from being urgently needed—between the awful MetLife Stadium turf and the Jets’ historical injury curse, you should never count on anyone’s availability beyond the present tense.
With that in mind, however, I expected Douglas to find some reinforcements in the trade market in two particular areas to boost his 4-3 club for the second half of the season. Despite some small pockets of improved play in recent weeks, the Jets still rank 31st in the league in offensive expected points added per play, ahead of only the crumbling Giants, per rbsdm.com. They are dead last in passing EPA.
While quarterback Zach Wilson bears a large load of the responsibility, his support hasn’t exactly been stellar beyond running back Breece Hall and wide receiver Garrett Wilson. Among the other receivers, Allen Lazard sports the league’s second-highest drop percentage (minimum 20 targets) while Randall Cobb owns the lowest yards gained per route run.
Another weapon who could separate would have been nice. However, the only receiver moved on Tuesday was Donovan Peoples-Jones, who was dealt from Cleveland to Detroit for a sixth-round pick in the 2025 Draft. He might have been a decent depth piece for New York, but how much more? Peoples-Jones is fairly versatile and can return punts, but he was obviously falling out of favor for a playoff contending team in Cleveland and isn’t much of a run blocker, so maybe not much.
More imperative for New York was fortifying the offensive line, which has been inundated by a glut of injuries. In the second half of Sunday’s overtime victory over the Giants, Gang Green was down to their fourth center in Xavier Newman, a practice squad pickup in early October who was beaten to a pulp by Giants defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence. Who knows when rookie second round pick Joe Tippmann will be ready to return from his quad injury, but even if he’s back for Monday night’s showdown against the Chargers at MetLife, the interior of the Jets’ line would still be at grave risk of just one foot caught in the turf.
Douglas did sign Rodger Saffold III “off his couch” to the practice squad on Tuesday with the intention of activating him when he’s ready to go, but A) He’s been at left guard for the last seven seasons, the one position on the line where the preseason starter (Laken Tomlinson) has made it through unscathed, and B) He’s 35 years old, and the Jets haven’t exactly had much luck with signing aging linemen coming off down years—he was responsible for 36 pressures allowed with Buffalo last season, per ProFootballFocus.com. As poorly as Tomlinson performed last season, he was only tagged for 32 pressures in 15 more pass block snaps.
Saffold did earn All-Pro honors back in 2017 and has a history with Jets offensive line coach Keith Carter when both were at Tennessee, but perhaps a better option flew by the Jets on the market—Jacksonville was able to snag guard Ezra Cleveland from Minnesota for the mere cost of a sixth-round pick. Cleveland, who boasts the 12th-best grade among 84 guards with at least 100 snaps this season from PFF (not that I trust these as much as I used to given how oddly they rank certain players), missed the last two weeks with a foot injury and hasn’t played right guard since his rookie season in 2020. He’s also a pending free agent. I still think Cleveland would have been a safer bet than Saffold, but maybe Douglas felt that the difference might have been too marginal to bother.
The bottom line is that though many assumed Douglas is operating under a playoff mandate, even after his star quarterback Aaron Rodgers was lost for the season (at least that’s how I believe he should proceed) with a ruptured Achilles in Week 1, he did not treat the trade deadline as such. No Godfather offers for star receivers; no overpays for offensive linemen.
We’ll see if that decision comes back to bite him.
Photo by: Elsa/Getty Images
Our clueless GM learned nothing from last year when he did nothing at the deadline and saw his team crash and burn after a 6-3 start. The O line is worse than ever because of his ineptitude in his FIFTH year as our GM.