I think you are onto something here. Mekhi was 345 when he started College, and 360 after 3 years there. He was pretty much injury free when he was that weight. It's later when the problems started, when he got into 380+ territory. Even now after he got in shape he was still around 380. For comparison Evan Neal, who has the same height, was 337 at the combine. So, it seems like unless Becton can get down to lower weight, he will always struggle with the injuries, especially now that his knee has taken major damage multiple times. This is not to say weight is the only thing, he could be just injury prone, but the only way to have a chance to succeed IMO is to get down to much lower weight than before.
Well I feel bad for Becton on a personal level, but the frustration for many of us is that we all saw he was an injury risk…two years told us so. The frustration is valid…and then JD didn’t really address it…we let Moses go and we didn’t use one of our 3 (!) first round picks on an OT. In fact we waited until the fourth round to draft a developmental tackle. So all this talk about conditioning and if it contributed to his injury, or if he was in shape for OTAs or camp or whatever…honestly I’m like who gives a shit? the FACTS are that he has missed more games than he’s played, we’ve known this, and we don’t have a solid back up plan. I like JD a lot but to me this is a valid criticism of him…he SHOULD have prepared for this. We had the ammo in draft picks, we had a player that we could have resigned, there were options. We didn’t use them. And now he’s going to have to scramble to fill a HUGE hole…Brown would be a good option. Maybe there are others…I’ve seen JD make some great trades in the past. But to me, placing trust in Becton was a HUGE risk that many here called out and really should’ve been handled better. and all this back and forth about conditioning or injury prone or freak injury or whatever…who cares? He’s been an injury prone player and we should have planned for the very real possibility that he would not be able to play a full 17 games…I never thought he’d not even make it to opening day, but hey…Becton hurt is not a shocker by any means
The interesting thing is that JD said ‘A luxury today could be a necessity tomorrow’ before the draft. Everyone though he was hinting at drafting Ike: https://jetsxfactor.com/2022/04/22/joe-douglas-ny-jets-hint-draft-plans/ From the article: "Selecting a tackle might be considered a “luxury” today but the position could become a “necessity” in the near future...Could Douglas pull the trigger on Ekwonu or Neal at No. 4 regardless of the talent New York already has on the roster at offensive tackle?" I remember reading this article back in the day thinking they will pick Ike or Neal (full disclosure I thought KT whom I liked at that spot was going top 3). The luxury/necessity scenario at Tackle turned out to be the precise one that played out. Now, I can see why JD didn't use top pick on Tackle: he didn't want to admit he blew 2020 draft completely and was hoping Becton would come back, then best case scenario we have two premium position starters in Sauce and Becton. But what I don't understand is why he didn't replace Moses. We NEEDED Moses last year, when we had Becton/Fant/Moses rotation. Hence we NEED a player like this year just from the probability standpoint. It's really not that hard to deduce. In fairness it looks like he was working on Duane Brown for some time, and was close to signing him before Becton injury. But still, that's some brass balls he has, given that Oline and Tackle specifically is the most critical piece in protecting QB, and we had two injury prone players there and no depth. He still hasn't signed Duane, as I am sure Duane raised the price after the recent developments. Let's just hope JD knows what he is doing. This is a little too close for comfort if you ask me.
If he doesn’t need surgery, he’ll be out up to 12 weeks with a possible return after week 8. But If he does need surgery then he’s done for the season.
With all due respect I don't think your argument that lack of conditioning caused the injury has any merit. There is no evidence that Becton was in bad condition or out of shape at training camp. Rather the evidence said the opposite. It said: 1. The Coaching staff said he was in good shape, met his weight goal and they were very happy with him. 2. The media said he was in great shape and met his weight goals. Specifically the neAthletic reporter, Cimini and Hughes. 3. The media said that Becton was performing at a very high level. That he was dominant in the run game and had made many splash plays. In terms of pass protection he played fine. Hughes said he had given up 2-3 sacks all camp and the difference without him yesterday was night and day. But according to the new Athletic reporter the run game is where Becton was really dominating. 4. The Coaching staff did not see the need to reduce his work load because of his conditioning. Rather Becton's knee began to hurt last week. He started to have pain, discomfort and a limp. He played and practiced through it. There is footage of himon Monday before he got knocked down in serious knee pain, limping and holding the knee but he kept getting up and trying to practice. The question I have is why was he not held out to protect himself from trying to do too much? The CS limited his reps at the Saturday scrimmage from it. That is the only limitation we have seen. It is likely either that he never recovered from the previous injury or that the previous injury was the cause. Ongoing complications would explain why the injury lasted so long and why he was not medically cleared from it until May of this year. There is no evidence except wild speculation that conditioning caused his injury as by all accounts he was in great shape and performing and playing at a very high level. Below is Hughes talking about Becton's conditioning and play at camp. Fairly remarkable turn around as Hughes was in the Becton is out of shape camp all spring. At some point maybe we have accept the fact that we all got played by the medias spring Becton is fat stories as they were likely just meant to get page hits and it nattered very little what Becton looked like May as long as he showed up to camp ready to go which he did.
I agree and hopefully I will not have to say it again. In this case I was replying to a poster who I respect and wanted to give him a proper and well thought out answer. If you have a question of substance or take issue with anything I posted I would be happy to answer any questions. Have a great morning or I guess afternoon as you appear to be in the UK.
It's really hard to have really good offensive lineman in the NFL because everybody wants one. It's even harder to have starter-level backups at OL. We got super lucky last year that Morgan Moses kinda fell into our laps. Maybe we can get lucky again with a Duane Brown, Daryl Williams, etc. Hopefully JD is working his tail off to try and get something figured out soon.
Good post! The expense to have starter level backups is pretty enormous in either draft capital or salary. To get a guy like Moses for 3 to 4 million will not happen often. I would have loved Icky but hard to be upset with Sauce and hard to be upset with any of our 1st 4 draft picks. Which one of those would we have given up for an OL? Now we not only need Brown but likely a back-up OT as well. It is hard to be upset. Look at the roster now compared to 2020. There are only three weak spots with players that are not average or above average. QB, RT and back-up RT. Brown, Dillard and maybe a camp cut seem like the leading options. But, I am sure JD is doing all he can. Injuries happen it is unfortunate it happened in our weakest position but the CS and JD need to find a way to deal with it.
That is how you get into the spot we've been in for the last decade. Drafting for need. However, you're not even advocating for drafting on need, you're advocating for drafting based on a potential needs. You never draft solely based on your needs right now, that goes doubly so for potential needs. This whole draft argument shouldn't be, Mekhi vs Sauce/GW/JJ. It should be Ekwonu/Neal/Cross vs Sauce/GW. If Sauce and GW end up being great players for us, it'll be hard to question their selections, regardless of what happens with those OL prospects. The Moses situation has also been well documented. He wanted to go somewhere where he would be a guaranteed starter. The Ravens gave him that and a good shot at a playoff run this year. So unless you wanted JD to break the bank for Moses, he wasn't coming back this year. Hindsight is always 20/20, and this is coming from someone who pounded the table for Ekwonu all offseason at 4.
Are all the folks that said these are just freak injuries and he’s not injury prone or his weight has nothing to do with it, still posting here?
I agree - it's hard, but in fairness, JD has known we have both tackles coming off serious injuries and actually we NEEDED Moses last year, and even needed another one at the end of the year when Fant got hurt. Imagine if we actually were good and were competing for play-offs, we would have been screwed at the end of last year when Fant got injured even with Moses on the team. Then we actually lost Moses in free agency. Some people were suggesting to draft Ike or Neal for example. Even if not though, I think given last year it was a fair expectation to have more at the Tackle spot than what we have today. Especially with JD constantly talking about trenches, luxury today, necessity tomorrow, etc... It has to be more than talk. With all that said, there are still options to move forward, i.e. Duane Brown. JD needs to get to work as time is of essence here. If we can't have good OLine, we can ruin the young QB and entire season. Right now we have a massive gap. The clock is ticking.
Yeah I wanted one of the tackles at 4 at the time as well…not sure which would’ve been the best fit for us but that’s what I would have done, only because I had zero faith in Becton (which has proven to be true), and I was more comfortable with Reed and Hall starting than I was with Sauce and Reed and no real answer at tackle. I get the whole drafting BPA vs Need discussion, but drafting for need to me means taking a much lesser player than others available to fill a need. Yes you may say the Jets had Sauce rated higher than any of the tackles, but from all the stuff I read, it was not a gargantuan gap. They were all close enough that they were all in the top ten discussion. Evaluations are estimates after all not hard facts. Had we taken Ik or Neal instead of Sauce I don’t think the reaction would have been “oh man look at the Jets reaching”. furthermore, to me, BPA vs Need are strategies…and it can be fluid. It depends on where the team is….sometimes BPA is the way to go, sometimes Need is important. to me, for us specifically at this time, I think the need to solidify tackle for a young highly drafted QB is more important than a shutdown corner. I’m not saying we didn’t need a top corner…certainly we can use the help. But we have a young QB who to be honest had a shitty rookie year, maybe due to injuries around him and a shit OL that got him rattled, or maybe because he’s just not gonna be that good, who knows that’s a separate argument, but we need to find out. So protecting him is important. And putting faith in Becton to stay on the field when he has missed more games than he’s finished would not have been my choice. After all, what’s the downside…if he can play and you draft a tackle and now have three starting tackles, you can always trade one. I think JD put a little too much faith in Becton, whether because he wanted to justify his draft pick, or for some other reason, he was wrong to do so. Now we have to hope he can pull a rabbit out of a hat, and he very well may with Brown, but we had the chance to better off here.
Like I said in another post, it's hard enough to have good OL in general, it's even harder to have starter-level backups on the OL in the NFL. There are other options still out there that can be our Moses for this year, so JD needs to get to work because we can't go into the season with Edoga or McDermott starting at RT.
I hope JD, the coaching staff and the medical staff conduct a comprehensive post-mortem on the entire Becton situation. They need to determine if this is just a case of shit happening or whether they bear some responsibility for what is looking more and more like a wasted high draft pick. This goal is to make sure they don't get burned again. 1. Given Becton's size, weight, body type, personality, eating habits and conditioning practices, did they over-draft him by ignoring or minimizing red flags that made him an extreme injury risk? 2. Was last year's injury diagnosed, treated and managed properly by the medical staff? 3. Did the team properly manage his off-season rehabilitation? 4. Did JD ignore red flags about Becton's likely availability this year when he conducted this year's draft? 5. Did the coaching and training staffs mismanage him in training camp, such as by letting him continue to practice even though he was limping?
I loved Ekwonu as a prospect and thought he would've been a perfect fit for us in this offense, so again, I get it, I was right there with you on wanting a OT at 4. My rationale had more to do with Fant than Becton at the time but that doesn't matter all that much now. We'll never truly know how they had all those guys graded out. The only thing we do know is that had Sauce higher than any of the OTs which is why he was the pick at 4. I get your point in your last paragraph but if us drafting/not drafting Ekwonu/Neal/Cross this year has THAT much of an impact on whether or not Zach becomes the guy, then he was never gonna be the guy in the first place. This isn't the Sam Darnold 2.0 situation in the sense that JD has done nothing to surround Zach. JD has drafted AVT, Elijah, MC, GW, Breece and signed Fant, McGovern, Tomlinson, Uzomah, Conklin, and Corey Davis within the past 2-3 years. There is plenty of talent on this offense right now. The cupboard is not bare for Zach like it was for Sam. Now clearly we have a hole at RT but there are some FA options that can come in and be serviceable, which is all we need this year, someone serviceable that isn't a total liability. I fully expect JD to target OT hard next offseason, whether that be in the draft, FA, or maybe both. Also, we did draft Max Mitchell this year, so hopefully he can develop to the point that he's a plus starter at RT in the near future.
Again, Evan Neil was just SITTING there when they drafted "Sauce". I was upset about it then, and I am even more so upset now. That being said, I am hoping more than ever that Gardner turns into a mega-star.
that's not true, Moses is in a competition at Ravens camp right now. He was not guaranteed a starting spot. Also, he's making a little over $3 mill this season with an out after the season so beating that would not have been breaking the bank.
