Chemistry lesson
Jets’ new O-line working to build cohesion
You could call the Jets offensive line room a chemistry experiment this summer.
Jets general manager Joe Douglas overhauled the unit, which was one of the worst in the NFL in 2019. None of the five players who started Week 1 last year are on the roster. The Jets will have an entirely new group of starters this year against the Bills to begin the season than they did last year.
That would be challenging in a normal year. That 2020 has been anything but normal has only complicated matters. Many of the men who will be playing next to each other on the line only met last week when the team reported to training camp.
They are scheduled to open the season five weeks from Sunday in Buffalo. Between now and then, it is a crash course in building cohesion and chemistry.
“We’re doing everything we can to build that chemistry whether we’re on the field, getting after it, competing against one another,” guard Alex Lewis said this week. “We’ve got group chats going on with each other to joke around and build that chemistry up. We’re talking through the playbook with each other after the runs in the locker room and quizzing each other, just pushing one another. That’s the best way you can build chemistry right now. We’re very limited still [in what we can do] and we’re trying to take full advantage of the time that we have together.”
Typically, the line would have been through an offseason program including OTA practices and a minicamp by now. They would also have three preseason games and many more training camp practices to jell.
This year, the line just got on the field together this past week for walkthroughs. In the coming week, practices will ramp up a little more with helmets, but it won’t be until the following week that they put pads on.
“The biggest challenge when you have a group like that is that we all speak football but we might call things by different names,” said guard Greg Van Roten, who signed as a free agent with the team. “We just have to get on the same page with our communication if we want to be effective and hit the ground running fast. So there’s going to be a learning curve, but I don’t think it will be this insurmountable obstacle that we can’t figure out.”
The line was a disaster last year, allowing Sam Darnold to be pressured too much and failing to open up holes in the running game. It did not help that the group was devastated by injuries. They used nine different starting offensive line combinations and 11 different players started.
This offseason, Douglas signed Connor McGovern to play center, Van Roten to play right guard and George Fant to play right tackle. He drafted Mekhi Becton in the first round to be the new left tackle and brought back Lewis, who emerged as a starter early last season.
That is a lot of new faces, but Lewis said that is a way of life for linemen.
“It’s not weird,” Lewis said. “This is going on my fifth year now. There’s always new guys and new faces coming in and old faces leaving. It’s something that you’ve just got to adapt to. For me, personally, all I can focus on is my job. I can’t worry about what upstairs does with personnel or anything like that. When you start worrying about that stuff, it takes away your focus on what you have to do personally.”
Jets coach Adam Gase said they have “a lot of work to do developing that kind of chemistry that we need.”
“I really like this group of O linemen. They’re great in meetings,” Gase said. “These guys are always trying to do things on their own to make sure them and the quarterbacks are on the same page. These guys communicate a lot. I think with FaceTime and Microsoft Teams these guys being able to communicate during training camp has been helpful for us because these guys talk through a lot of things.”