Jets X-Factor’s 2020 New York Jets predictions: Offense

The Jets X-Factor crew submits its predictions for the 2020 New York Jets offense: breakout player, rookie of the year, Sam Darnold's touchdown total, and more. Who will be the Jets' best player on offense? Ben Blessington: Sam Darnold Joe Blewett: Connor McGovern Michael Nania: Connor McGovern Robby Sabo: Sam Darnold Sam Crnic: Sam Darnold McGovern is my pick. A top-10 center at Pro Football Focus in 2019, McGovern inarguably had the best 2019 season of any offensive player on the current Jets roster. Here's the interesting domino effect associated with McGovern's play. If he does replicate his performance from a year ago, that would substantially raise Sam Darnold's chances of taking a massive jump. With a lack of elite talent on the roster at the moment, Darnold could rank in the top 12-16 range among starting quarterbacks and easily be considered the team's best offensive player. Two more players to watch out for: Chris Herndon and Le'Veon Bell. Herndon's rookie year suggested he has elite potential. Bell was easily the league's best running back from 2014-17, leading the NFL in scrimmage yards over that span (6,737) despite missing 15 games. His average of 137.5 yards per game during that period was over 30.0 yards ahead of second-ranked Antonio Brown (104.9). With even just average-level blocking from his offensive line, Bell's production should rise back to an elite level in 2020, as I detailed here. Do not count out Jamison Crowder, either. Crowder ranked fourth in receptions (58) and touchdowns (5) from the slot in 2019. If the offensive line improves enough in pass protection, Crowder should see an uptick in downfield production that gives him the potential to approach 1,000 receiving yards. Who will be the Jets' best rookie on offense? Ben: Denzel Mims Joe: Mekhi Becton Michael: Mekhi Becton Robby: Mekhi Becton Sam: Mekhi Becton This seems to be a competition between solely Becton and Mims, the only two rookies who should get ample playing time in 2020. James Morgan, La'Mical Perine, and Cameron Clark will start their careers as backups, barring injuries. Mims has not been able to participate in camp practices yet, but should be back soon. In most cases, a second-round rookie missing this much time would be detrimental to his chances of getting early playing time, but Mims should slide right in with the first-team offense given the Jets' lack of depth at wide receiver. If he can quickly forge some chemistry with Darnold, Mims will have every opportunity to put together a rookie season similar to the ones we saw from post-first round receivers Deebo Samuel, A.J. Brown, or Marquise Brown in 2019. Targets are there to be had with no clear-cut star hogging the spotlight. Becton will take on the challenge of starting at left tackle from Day 1. As I broke down here, highly-drafted rookie tackles have been incredibly boom-or-bust in their debut campaigns. Some have been instant stars while many have struggled mightily, but few have settled in around league average. The odds are strong that Becton will be either great or brutal in his first season. If he is the latter, it would obviously hurt the Jets' chances of succeeding in 2020, but it would not sink Becton's long-term outlook much at all. Players like D'Brickashaw Ferguson, Trent Williams, and Russell Okung overcame rocky rookie seasons to become elite players. Growing pains are normal and should be expected, not frowned upon. One dark horse to watch out for - Lawrence Cager. The undrafted rookie out of Georgia has been generating a lot of buzz in camp and has a path to playing time with the myriad of injuries at wide receiver. Plus, as a six-foot-five, 220-pound red zone weapon, he offers a profile that is unmatched by any other receiver on the current roster and has been lacked by the Jets offense for years. Excluding rookies - who will be the Jets' breakout star on offense? Ben: Chris Herndon Joe: Breshad Perriman Michael: Chris Herndon Robby: Braxton Berrios Sam: Jamison Crowder Our first question with more than two different answers. Herndon was the only player to get two votes (via the Cool Your Jets duo) while Perriman, Berrios, and Darnold each picked up a vote. Perriman and Berrios are bold picks from Joe and Robby, respectively, but they have clear paths to claiming this title. If Perriman can put together a full season of solid play, it would be the first of his career, making him one of the league's most improved players. Berrios has shown solid route-running chops in camp and would likely assume the starting slot role in the event of a Jamison Crowder injury. Early in the season, he could feature in double-slot looks as the Jets battle injuries at the outside wide receiver position. Who will be the Jets' most disappointing player on offense? Ben: Ryan Griffin Joe: Alex Lewis Michael: George Fant Robby: Breshad Perriman Sam: Alex Lewis Lewis received a pair of votes here, and it's a pick that makes sense. He has earned the fanbase's respect for his likable tenacity, being a Joe Douglas guy, and his status as the lone holdover from 2019 on the projected starting five. However, while he may have been one of the least awful players on last year's group, Lewis clearly has the lowest ceiling of the five players on the 2020 projected starting line. With the intriguing Cameron Clark waiting for his shot to take a starting guard spot, Lewis may have the highest chance of being benched. The starting offensive line's most questionable player is either Lewis or my pick for "most disappointing," Fant. He is the inverse of Lewis, possessing an exciting ceiling but easily the lowest floor of the bunch. Robby elaborated that his pick of Perriman has not to do with the Central Florida product's talent, but his injury history. Who will be the Jets' best assistant coach on offense? Ben: John Dunn (tight ends) Joe: Shawn Jefferson (wide receivers) Michael: John Dunn (tight ends) Robby: Shawn Jefferson (wide receivers) Sam: Frank Pollack (offensive line) Ben and I went with tight ends coach John Dunn, lining up with our breakout predictions for Herndon. Joe and Robby settled on wide receivers coach Shawn Jefferson, who is one of the most revered assistants on the staff. The wide receiver group may have a very low floor due to its injury questions and lack of reliability, but Perriman, Mims, Berrios, Cager, and Vyncint Smith are all moldable talents with intriguing upside, laying the path for Jefferson to work some magic. Will the Jets rank better or worse than #20.5 in offensive DVOA? Ben: Better Joe: Worse Michael: Better Robby: Better Sam: Better For reference, the Jets ranked 31st in offensive DVOA this past season. Four of us think the Jets will rank 20th or better in offensive DVOA, with Joe as the exception. This was a close one for me. I think the offense will check in around the 16th-19th range. There is still lots of work to be done on the offensive line and wide receiver for the unit to become elite, but I think the line is improved enough to pave the way for Darnold, Bell, Crowder, Herndon, and Griffin to lead an average offense. In addition, while I think Darnold will take a big step forward this year, I do not think this will be his peak form. I believe that 2021 - Darnold's fourth season - will be the beginning of his prime, and thus the start of the Jets' window to build an elite offense. Will the Jets offensive line rank better or worse than #20.5? Ben: Better Joe: Worse Michael: Worse Robby: Better Sam: Worse This is a difficult one. Although there was a 2/3 split here, none of us see the Jets offensive line straying too far from that low-20s/high-teens area. The unit should be much-improved from its No. 31 ranking a year ago, but it will probably still be a below-average crew. I nailed down a ceiling and floor for the Jets offensive line here, and established a baseline expectation here. If everything breaks right, this could be a borderline top-10 unit. However, the floor is very low. In the event that very little goes right, this unit could be about as bad as last year's. The Jets are banking on a lot of factors - Fant making major progress, Becton avoiding growing pains, McGovern maintaining his breakout year, etc. - so if those things do not pan out, there simply is not enough top-end talent or reliable depth to make the worst-case scenario a survivable one. Altogether, I found that the unit's most likely landing spot is somewhere around No. 21. That would be a major stepping stone for the present and future. In 2020, that would be competent enough for Bell and Darnold to have at least some control over their own destinies after being placed into insurmountable situations last year. Going forward, it would set the stage for Joe Douglas to find the last piece or two to push the unit into the elite ranks in 2021. Will Le'Veon Bell collect over or under 1,000.5 rushing yards? Ben: Over Joe: Over Michael: Over Robby: Under Sam: Over As a Steeler, Bell averaged 86.2 rushing yards per game, which is a pace for 1,379 per 16 games. Due to injuries and suspensions, Bell only surpassed 1,000 yards in three of his five seasons with Pittsburgh (excluding 2018), but he eclipsed 62.5 yards per game in all five, which is the number needed to accumulate 1,000 yards over 16 games. In 2019, Bell averaged only 52.6 rushing yards per game, his first season below a 1,000-yard pace. He finished with 789 yards in 15 games. Bell carried the ball 16.3 times per game in 2019, racking up 245 rush attempts in total. That's more than enough to hit 1,000 yards. He was just far too inefficient, averaging a horrible 3.2 yards per carry due largely to his league-low 1.2 yards before contact per attempt. If Bell averaged 4.3 yards per carry - his Steelers average - over 245 attempts, he would have collected 1,053 yards, or 70.2 per game (1,123 per 16 games). Looking to 2020, if Bell averaged 16.3 carries per game over 16 games, he would carry the ball 261 times. At that number, Bell would need to average only 3.8 yards per carry to hit 1,000 yards. I think he can easily get to that mediocre mark with this not-abysmal offensive line, so I'm taking the over. Will Breshad Perriman collect over or under 800.5 receiving yards? Ben: Under Joe: Over Michael: Under Robby: Under Sam: Under Most of us are not too high on the volatile Perriman, but Joe is all-in on the talented former Buccaneer. Joe broke down Perriman's film with former Jets cornerback Marcus Coleman, discovering some route-running issues but also his unique talent at the catch point. I broke down Perriman's ceiling, floor, and baseline prediction here. The bottom line is that Perriman has yet to put together a full season of quality play. He has averaged just 30.6 yards per game in his career, pace for 490 yards per 16 games. His 46.1 yards per game in 2019 was a career-high, pace for 738 yards per 16 games. Prior to his breakout last December, Perriman never even had a half-season stretch of play that promised starter-quality production. Over his first 46 career games, Perriman's best eight-game run in terms of yardage (within one season) was his 41.8 yards per game with the Browns from Weeks 9-17 of 2018 - pace for 668 yards per 16 games. Plus, Perriman averaged only 1.9 catches over that streak, putting up an extremely unsustainable 22.3 yards per reception. That was the absolute best run Perriman had to offer over the first 75 possible appearances (46 games played / 29 missed) of his career from 2015 to late-2019. Perriman is extremely talented and is coming off of a month in which few players were as dominant, but that is just a small portion of a largely disappointing career. Will Sam Darnold collect over or under 25.5 passing touchdowns? Ben: Over Joe: Over Michael: Over Robby: Under Sam: Over Darnold should have a good chance of beating this mark - I explained here how he could even approach 30 touchdowns by building off some of his 2019 success. In 2019, Darnold launched 19 touchdown passes in 13 games, which would put him on pace for 23.3 touchdowns over 16 games. Over his final eight games of 2019, Darnold threw 13 touchdowns, which of course would place him on track for 26 over 16 games. With Darnold still only 23 years old and now getting his first chance to enter a second consecutive professional season in the same offense, I like his chances of taking a big step forward in each of the next two seasons. I think Darnold throws somewhere from 27-to-29 touchdowns this year, with his first 30-plus season coming in 2021.