Carl Lawson jokes about injury
The 2021 season has surely not been a fun one for New York Jets edge rusher Carl Lawson. He suffered a season-ending Achilles injury in August and has had to helplessly watch his team win three of its 14 games while allowing a league-leading 30.6 points per game.
But you know how it goes – humor can be one of the best coping mechanisms.
It appears Lawson is remaining in good spirits about everything that has gone down in his treacherous first year as a Jet.
In a post to his Instagram story, Lawson jokingly referred to his injury as he shared a screenshot of his order for an “Achilles Breakfast Omelette”, which includes egg whites, feta, kale, tomato, and onion.
Carl Lawson with the Instagram Story of the Year. Absolutely phenomenal. #Jets @carllawson55 pic.twitter.com/0sSQkmIfr2
— . (@ryannyj) December 22, 2021
It appears Lawson is not a fan of every ingredient in the aptly named dish, but he is willing to let it slide.
“I don’t like kale but hey,” Lawson’s caption reads.
A major free-agent addition by general manager Joe Douglas, Lawson was poised to be the engine of Robert Saleh and Jeff Ulbrich‘s attacking 4-3 defensive scheme that needs its four-man rush to cause havoc without the help of a blitz. The former Bengal ranked fourth among all NFL edge rushers with 64 pressures in 2020.
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Without Lawson’s elite pass-rushing abilities, the Jets’ pass rush has been fairly mediocre throughout the year, and in turn, the defense has been terrible overall.
It is very difficult for this particular scheme to work without a great pass rush. The defensive line’s highly-aggressive mentality is designed to create a dominant pass rush at the cost of sacrificing run defense and placing immense pressure on the players in the back end to cover up for them. So, if that trade-off is not resulting in amazing pass rushing, it is going to be an enormous net loss.
Lawson signed a three-year, $45 million deal with $30 million guaranteed. He had a $14.3 million cap hit in 2021 and will see that number rise to $15.3 million in 2022, which is currently slated to rank 20th among edge rushers.
