Mekhi Becton was supposed to be a foundational piece of the New York Jets’ organizational rebuild.
The hotel-sized offensive tackle looked every bit a longterm blindside protector in his first season with the team. The Jets were mostly awful in 2020 thanks to the confluence of Adam Gase and Sam Darnold mixing together to form a feculent hurricane of football awfulness. Even so, Becton stood out as a building block for a team that had few.
But Becton’s chance to grow alongside rookie quarterback Zach Wilson was cut devastatingly short in 2021 after suffering a knee injury in Week 1. In 2022, he didn’t even get that far.
#Jets OT Mekhi Becton has suffered an avulsion fracture of the right knee cap, per me and @MikeGarafolo. He’s seeing a surgeon tomorrow, but likely is out for the year. Brutal.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) August 9, 2022
This broken kneecap is the latest twist in a brief career. Becton’s future with the team appeared unclear after head coach Robert Saleh told reporters he’d have to “earn” his starting spot back in the spring. By the summer, Saleh was praising his massive tackle’s commitment to rehabilitating his knee, showing up to the team facility and managing his weight this offseason. While there’s a reasonable chance he would have been moved to right tackle if George Fant continued to play well on the left side, it’s likely he would have been an inked-in piece of the starting lineup.
This is a blow to a rising roster in need of blocking. General manager Joe Douglas has worked overtime the last two seasons to give Wilson the playmaking talent he needs to thrive. He’s added wideouts like Corey Davis, Elijah Moore and Garrett Wilson, tight ends CJ Uzomah and Tyler Kroft and running backs Michael Carter and Breece Hall. And none of those guys will make an appreciable difference in the regular season standings if Wilson can’t find the time to make throws in the pocket.
Wilson was a disaster as a rookie. A big part of this was his penchant for missing windows downfield, lingering in the pocket, and running into trouble rather than away from it.
He lost a league-worst 370 yards via sacks — more than 8.4 yards per! — despite only playing 14 games. His 10.3 percent sack rate was second-worst, ahead of only fellow overburdened rookie Justin Fields in Chicago. But while Fields’ Bears offensive line clocked in at 22nd in Pro Football Focus’ end-of-year rankings, the Jets were 11th. Blocking breakdowns existed, but the crux of the problem was often Wilson’s inability to deal with the minor inconveniences veteran quarterbacks can shake off.
As a result, a prospect with one of the prettiest pro day deep balls you’ll ever see completed just 16 passes 20+ yards downfield. He was, in terms of the NFL’s Next Gen Stats Expected Points Added (EPA) metric, good for -0.35 expected points per play on third down last fall.
Building the good habits that eliminate confusion in the pocket and executing plays downfield begin with good blocking. New York’s protection just got worse. While the team was able to duct tape that line together to form a cohesive unit in 2021, there’s no guarantee it will happen again.
It’s not time to panic. The Jets have options. The current roster isn’t particularly rosy with backups like Conor McDermott (six career starts, already injured this preseason), Chuma Edoga (who failed to crack the lineup last year after Becton was injured), Caleb Benenoch (two games played since 2018) and fourth-round pick Max Mitchell waiting in the wings. Instead, Douglas and Saleh may turn to the lingering remnants of the free agent marketplace.
Veteran Duane Brown is in town to kick the tires on a potential deal and had a solid 2021 season that ended with a Pro Bowl invite even if it wasn’t especially Pro Bowl worthy (no matter what, it could never be as egregious as Evan Engram earning a trip to Orlando despite making Daniel Jones markedly worse). He could sign with the team as a one year plug-and-play stopgap.
Brown, while possibly the best available option in the current free agent market, will soon turn 37 years old and gave up eight sacks last season, per Pro Football Focus. The team could also turn to veterans like Daryl Williams, Bobby Massie, Brandon Shell or Bryan Bulaga. Otherwise, the tackle market is dotted by blockers on the brink of retirement like Eric Fisher, Jason Peters and Nate Solder or journeymen like Marcus Cannon or Ty Nsekhe.
No matter what, this is a sizable pot hole on a road Douglas and Saleh have carefully spent the last two seasons paving for Zach Wilson. The young quarterback has ability to drop the ball in a bucket downfield, but he wasn’t even one of the Jets’ top three passers last year because the static in front of him interfered with his playmaking brainwaves.
Becton’s return was supposed to help lay the cable that cleared up the blurriness and helped him see his receivers in full HD. Without him in the lineup, it could be another year of standard definition mistakes for a player with a massive learning curve.
