It seems it’s not only fans who are frustrated with the former first-round pick
More Mekhi Becton news came out yesterday. Once again, it muddies the waters on the behemoth tackle’s status on the New York Jets.
ESPN insider Dan Graziano joined Mike ‘Greeny’ Greenberg yesterday. He reported that there is “frustration” among the Jets coaching staff with Becton and they would “like to see him not be overweight.”
Graziano added that he does not know whether a guy can get himself back in shape between now and training camp to make the coaches happy with him, but he added that Becton “has the support of the front office that drafted him.”
The final point Graziano made is one that many Jets fans have espoused for the last few months: the NFL is a “production business,” and if Becton does not play to the level of one of their starting five, the team “will have a tough decision to make.”
Although head coach Robert Saleh has refrained from making his feelings about Becton known publicly, the suspicion that he was displeased with the offensive tackle came from what he did not say. Graziano’s report confirms those suspicions.
Some of the team’s frustration with Becton stems back to before his injury in Week 1 last season. The team was not happy that Carl Lawson smoked Becton in training camp last season, prompting offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur to comment that Becton was “not playing at his best.”
The Mekhi Becton narrative is getting tiresome for many. Jets fans want to see Becton put in the work to obliterate the ‘Big Bust’ moniker.
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I wish I knew just how valid this story really is because frankly I am so tired of any and every nitwit with a $32 web cam and a youtube page commenting on this. Is Becton the 2022 whipping board? If the season starts and Becton isn’t an issue, I will call out every one of you so called writers and ask you to explain why you are all such haters! The Jets have one of their best off seasons ever and 90% of your time is spent on Becton. And this is from so-called news outlets that are pro Jets. We all have to consider how reliable are these stories when they are broadcast from some kids bedroom that has posters up on the walls! Be happy Jets fans, don’t let the youtubers bring you down. Think positive!
Becton is one of the biggest unknowns heading into the season, and his success is key to the Jets. Ergo, any time something new comes out about him, there will be an article about it.
It’s a little strange how things have gone sideways for Becton starting with the poor performance in training camp of last year. Is it possible he got over confident after a decent rookie year and came in thinking he could just coast? Now that he’s gotten past the injury, he’s got to lose weight, he’s got stiff competition at left tackle, he may have to learn a new position at right tackle, and it seems like the coaching staff is running out of patience with him. Challenges, challenges. We’ll see what the young man is made of.
It would not be surprising if that is exactly what happened. Becton seems to have a chip on his shoulder, but he’s not really entitled to one without putting in the work to disprove the naysayers. He will almost certainly be the right tackle, both because he hasn’t earned the LT spot and because George Fant is a better left tackle than right.
The only hope is that Becton will prove the doubters wrong.
Graziano seemed to be speculating quite a bit. He may have gotten a report on the weight but everything else seemed to be an educated guess. Then he said he has not performed up to his draft position which is a lie. He graded out in the 70s per pff in run blocking and pass blocking and was top ten in the league the 2nd half of his rookie yr at his position. I will get worried if Becton doesn’t lose at least 15 more lbs from the video I saw. If he can do that he should be fine for camp and can gradually lose another 15 or so during camp.
It seemed that Graziano at least had some information from inside the team about the coaches’ feelings about him. That’s why we reported it.
He has not performed up to his draft position in the sense that he got smoked by Lawson in training camp last year, missed the whole season, and then showed up to minicamp out of shape and overweight. When he actually played on the field, he looked like a superstar in the making.
I agree about the amount of weight Becton needs to lose. From what I understand, even though he was listed at 364, he played at about 370. If he can get down to 375-380 by training camp and then lose the rest gradually, the weight concern, at least, should be put to bed. His conditioning and gameplay are a different story.
Getting beat in practice and getting hurt still have little to no bearing on how he performed on the field in real games. Your points while valid are misplaced when speaking about his performance which graded out better in pass pro than than George Fant’s season we keep heaping so much praise on. I want him to be healthy and in shape, but he is not a question mark on the field.
After a knee injury, there was always going to be a concern about Becton’s performance, regardless of his weight or work ethic. That’s just the way the NFL works. When you add in the weight, work ethic, and injury recovery questions, it becomes that much more of a concern. Though it is certain that Joe Douglas did not draft a tackle in the hopes that Becton can get back to his 2020 form, there is no question that there was some disquiet about his ability to bounce back to dominance.
I love the dialogue, but again you shift the discussion. I was speaking about his past performance and the knee injury Becton had was a mid grade knee injury. With 10 months to recover he will be fine. The key as I stated is for him to comeback I’d him being in shape. My main point originally was it sounded like Graziano had a source on weight and speculated on some other points.
Past performance from two years ago is relevant but not the be-all and end-all when it comes to a player. The fact that the knee injury was mid-grade and kept him out the whole season further begs the question about how it will affect his performance.
My original response to your comment was saying that it appeared to me that Graziano was not speculating about the coaches’ frustration with Becton. Still, it’s possible that he took the source about the weight and added his own opinions about it.
The injury keeping him out the full season was about weight and not the knee everyone seems to forget he was already working on the side during the season. He was out of shape which is why he did not come back. That is really the only factor in if Becton will play well. This type of injury is not a career arc changer. Let’s be honest about that and I also felt Graziano was speculating about performance I stated it seemed he had a source on weight, but the nature of his words seemed to indicate a degree of speculation in the rest of his report, imo.
Have replied before, hope he achieves his enormous potential, and also add a veteran in case he does not! Team success is too important to not have Plan b ready. Can’t wait! Just extend THIS season! Who says we can’t?
As training camp nears, it becomes more imperative that Douglas sign someone asap. I understand that he is trying not to overpay, but tackle is too critical to Zach Wilson’s development to stand on principle like that.
It’s becoming more and more evident this was the “red flag” in the draft process. I know nothing about the situation, but to say he “has the support of the front office that drafted him” needs a bit of clarification. Is that Graziano’s opinion based on his years of doing this or is that something he heard from a source? My guess is the front office doesn’t support Becton’s actions, but they may still feel he can turn it around. Personally, I don’t see it. I’m not around the guy, I have no sources but from what I can see this is an immature person who is struggling being a pro. I get it, weight isn’t easy, and is a struggle for many, but he’s decided to be a pro football player, and has every resource to fix his problem. He needs to get it together. I don’t think any of this will matter because it seems certain he’ll be hurt again. Clearly he’s carrying too much weight.
The questions are: Does that make Reiff more attractive? How much does Reiff have left in the tank? How long will it take him to acclimate? Is there another player they can get via cuts, FA, or trade to fill that hole? Obviously, Becton can’t be trusted.
There’s always the possibility that Becton will capitalize on his potential until we actually see him on the field. I suppose that’s what the front office is counting on. If Becton turns out to be as big of a concern as it appears right now, the misstep of not drafting a tackle could cost Joe Douglas his job in the long run. Becton’s health and success are critical to the improvement of Zach Wilson in Year 2.
The mental state of an NFL player is very hard to gauge, particularly when it comes to motivation. Becton has had bad look after bad look, but it’s hard to know anything for certain until training camp starts.
It’s presumable that Douglas has not signed another tackle yet to avoid an overpay, but time is ticking. The outside-zone blocking scheme is notoriously difficult to teach, so a tackle with experience in that system is important as insurance for Becton. Other than Reiff, the other two tackles that have been mentioned are Duane Brown and Eric Fisher. It would be shocking if Douglas did not sign one of those three.
Any idea if Brown or Fisher have played in the “zone scheme”? I don’t think Becton alone is enough to get Douglas fired. If he’s a bust and these other drafts live up to the positive hype then Becton can bust and it won’t matter. They need some insurance for sure now though.
Well, considering that Brown was just arrested for gun possession, I don’t think the Jets are going to be so quick to go there.
It appears that the Colts run a mix of schemes, so Fisher must have used outside zone at some point, but it’s not the bread and butter there. Seems like the same with KC.
Regarding Douglas, if Becton busts but the team as a whole improves and Wilson has a better Year 2, then no, it won’t cost him his job. But if Becton busts and Wilson struggles as a result of a poor offensive line, that could become a huge blemish on Douglas’s record. It’s not just Becton, but Becton as he affects Wilson.
Yeah, if the line doesn’t improve because Becton busts it’s a problem. I actually think the OT’s are still more of a question than we may think. I’d like to see Fant replicate that good year before I can completely trust him, and you saw my thoughts on Becton.
Many believe that the tackles are a problem. The Jets most likely have not signed Fant to an extension because they want to see him replicate his success. Although there is reason to believe that it was not a one-year wonder performance, the fact is that Fant had not come close to that production prior to last season, and he did it against mostly inferior pass rushers. That will not be the case this year. It makes the need for a quality swing tackle that much more pressing.
(That’s not to mention the fact that Fant has also struggled with injuries in the past.)