The New York Jets will bring back four of five starting offensive linemen this season, with free agent addition Dylan Parham the likely new starter at left guard, according to a team breakdown published on the club’s website this week. The Jets were the only NFL team to start the same five linemen in every game last regular season, with that group taking 99.2 percent of the line snaps — the highest share for a Jets line since play counts became available in 2004.
General manager Darren Mougey called the unit a strength this offseason. “It’s a young group,” he said. “I think, with continuity in the group, they’ll only continue to get better.” The evidence for optimism is genuine: left tackle Olu Fashanu is 23, right tackle Armand Membou is 22, and both are first-round picks the team drafted in consecutive years. Membou also registered with evaluators league-wide this week, appearing among the players receiving votes in ESPN’s annual poll of executives, coaches and scouts ranking the top 10 offensive tackles. Joe Tippmann, 25, returns at right guard, and Josh Myers, 27, is the senior member at center.
Why it matters
Here is the other column in the ledger: that same continuous, healthy, five-man line allowed 60 sacks last season, among the most in the league. Continuity is only a virtue if the thing you are continuing works. The line did help Breece Hall to his first 1,000-yard rushing season, so the run blocking held up its end. The pass protection did not, and now the man taking the hits is Geno Smith, a 35-year-old quarterback who cannot absorb 60 sacks and finish the season upright.
The one change is at left guard, where John Simpson departed for Baltimore in free agency and Parham, 26, arrives after four seasons with the Raiders. Mougey also traded up in April’s draft to add Miami lineman Anez Cooper for depth. Whether swapping one starter and betting on internal growth from two very young tackles fixes a 60-sack problem is the question that will decide the Jets’ season more than any skill-position storyline.
For fantasy, the run blocking is the buyable part: Hall’s 1,000-yard season came behind this exact group, and continuity up front supports his workload again. Smith and the passing game are the risk side — until the protection improves, Jets pass catchers project as volume-dependent picks with a lower ceiling than their talent suggests.
