NY Jets fans, don’t be fooled by the hype around this free agent

Donovan Smith expressed interest in joining the New York Jets, but should they actually want him?

After his recent comments about the New York Jets, veteran offensive tackle Donovan Smith is about to become one of the team’s most widely discussed free agent options over the next month-plus.

A few days ahead of the Super Bowl, the Chiefs’ starting left tackle expressed interest in joining the Jets. Smith, who hails from Hempstead, New York, said he grew up a Jets fan and that it would a “dream” to join his childhood team.

#Chiefs OT Donovan Smith, who is set to become a UFA after the #SuperBowl tells the NY Post that it would be a “dream” to sign with his childhood team, the NY #Jets.

“I grew up a Jets fan. I’m from New York, so that would definitely be something I would appreciate before my… pic.twitter.com/23nM17inIB

— uSTADIUM (@uSTADIUM) February 9, 2024

It’s all too perfect. The Jets badly need offensive line help. Smith has 136 career starts under his belt and is about to play in his second Super Bowl of the past four seasons. And now, the Long Island kid has publicly expressed a desire to join his hometown team.

Stories like this will always send the media and the fanbase into a tizzy. It’s the type of fairytale stuff that is easy to buy into. A big-name player at a position of need wants to come home and play for the Jets? Go get him, Joe Douglas!

But nobody should care about fun stories in the NFL. This league is about winning. Can Smith actually help the Jets win? That’s what we’re here to find out today.

Instead of buying into the easy story and bowing down to a recognizable name, we’re going to take the time to really dig into Smith as a player, aiming to find out whether this is truly as seamless of a fit as the media and the fanbase will try to convince you it is.

Let’s dig into Smith’s free agent profile.

Jets free agent profiles:

• Ravens G Kevin Zeitler
• Raiders T Jermaine Eluemunor
• Saints G James Hurst
• Jaguars WR Calvin Ridley
• Buccaneers WR Mike Evans
• Cowboys T Tyron Smith
• Rams G Kevin Dotson
• Packers G Jon Runyan
• Packers T David Bakhtiari
• Bengals WR Tee Higgins
• Jaguars G Ezra Cleveland

Basic info

• Age: 30.6
• Height: 6-foot-6
• Weight: 338 pounds
• College: Penn State
• Experience: 9 years (Drafted Round 2, Pick 34 by Tampa Bay in 2015)
• Teams: Buccaneers (2015-22), Chiefs (2023)
• Previous contract: 1 year, $3M (Signed with Tampa Bay in May 2023)

Measurables

• Data from 2015 Combine (via Mockdraftable)
• Percentiles among all-time offensive line prospects

• Height: 6’6″ (78th percentile)
• Weight: 338 pounds (95th)
• Arm length: 34.375in (78th)
• Hand size: 10.625in (89th)
• 40-yard dash: 5.27s (48th)
• Vertical jump: 32in (89th)
• Broad jump: 109in (83rd)
• 3-cone drill: 7.95s (28th)
• 20-yard shuttle: 4.79 (39th)
• Bench press: 26 reps (58th)

Smith recorded a Relative Athletic Score (RAS) of 8.08/10.

Role

Smith has exclusively been a starting left tackle in his career, with all 136 of his career appearances being starts at left tackle. He has never come off the bench or played a snap at one of the other four positions.

Smith started 12 games at left tackle for Kansas City in 2023. He missed five late-season games with a neck injury, but returned in time for the playoffs and has started all three of their playoff games.

2023 performance

Signs of massive decline in both phases

Smith is a relatively big name in the offensive line world, which is why fans and media are hyping up his comments about the Jets. However, it’s starting to look like his days as a viable starter are behind him. Despite his notoriety, Smith was statistically one of the worst starting tackles in the NFL during the 2023 regular season.

In pass protection, Smith allowed 42 pressures on 506 pass-blocking snaps, per Pro Football Focus. His pressure rate of 8.3% ranked 68th out of 83 qualified tackles.

Smith did face a fairly high rate of true pass sets (excludes plays with fewer than 4 rushers, play action, screens, short drop backs, and throws under 2 seconds). His 49% true pass set rate was 25th at the position; the position average was 46.3%.

When you adjust for his true pass set frequency, Smith’s pass protection appears marginally better, although he was still poor after accounting for this. His net pressure rate – which shows his pressure rate compared to the position average after adjusting expectancy based on his true pass set frequency – was 1.7%, ranking 65th out of 83 qualifiers. That puts him at the 22nd percentile.

Smith was even worse as a run blocker. At PFF, he earned a run-blocking grade of 45.0, which ranked 80th out of 83 qualifiers (4th percentile).

Kansas City struggled to run the ball in Smith’s direction. In games where Smith played, the Chiefs averaged 3.5 yards per attempt and -0.21 EPA per attempt on designed rush attempts to the left side. These marks would have ranked 31st and 27th, respectively, over the course of the full season. And this was with first-team All-Pro Joe Thuney playing beside him at left guard.

Exemplifying Smith’s massive negative impact as a run blocker is the fact that Kansas City was immensely better on these same runs when Smith was sidelined. With Smith out from Weeks 11-15, the Chiefs averaged 5.1 yards per attempt and 0.21 EPA per attempt on designed rush attempts to the left side. Those marks would be third and first over the full season.

Combining his percentile rankings in net pressure rate and run-blocking grade, Smith had one of the worst seasons among free-agent-to-be offensive linemen. Scroll all the way to the bottom of this list and you’ll see him:

Penalty-prone

Smith also had a penchant for penalties. He was flagged nine times on just 749 offensive snaps, giving him an average of 12.0 penalties per 1,000 snaps. This rate placed 60th among the 70 tackles who played at least 500 offensive snaps.

49ers edge rusher Nick Bosa called out Smith for holding too much.

Nick Bosa calling out Donovan Smith for holding “a lot” 💀pic.twitter.com/exi644OsAB

— Josh Hill (@jdavhill) February 1, 2024

Smith is lucky he wasn’t called for at least 11 penalties. In Kansas City’s Week 4 win over the Jets, Smith had two blatant penalties that were egregiously missed by the officials, both at crucial junctures of the game.

Smith essentially tackled Jamien Sherwood to create an easy touchdown for Isiah Pachecho, and late in the fourth quarter, he held Jermaine Johnson to create a scrambling conversion for Patrick Mahomes on third-and-22.

Watch Jamien Sherwood (44) on this play this was Pachecos big TD run an OBVIOUS hold on Donny Smith but of course there was no holding call 🤡#NewYorkJets #JJetsX #Jets #TakeFlight #NYJets #JetsCanada🇨🇦pic.twitter.com/yFObcgm0jM

— 𝙅 (@JJetsX) October 2, 2023

Please watch Donovan smith holding tf out of 11 HOW IS THAT NOT CALLED #KCvsNYJ pic.twitter.com/NuClh0otay

— SportBallBoyz (@SportBallBoyz) October 2, 2023

Improving in the playoffs

To be fair, Smith has been better in the playoffs. Through three games, he’s only allowed five pressures on 127 pass-blocking snaps (3.9% pressure rate) while committing only one penalty.

His run blocking has still been subpar, although not quite as abysmal, with a grade of 58.8. This would have ranked 49th out of 83 qualifiers in the regular season.

Comparing 2023 performance to previous track record

Smith was generally a solid starter (not elite) over his first seven seasons, but he may be entering the downward curve of his career arc. Smith’s 2023 performance is a continuation of the steep decline that began in 2022.

Smith had an even worse run-blocking grade of 41.5 in 2022, ranking second-worst among qualified tackles. It was also the worst among Tampa Bay’s offensive linemen, suggesting he was the main culprit for a horrendous Bucs run game that ranked 32nd in rush yards, rush touchdowns, rush attempts, and yards per rush attempt.

On the surface, it looks like Smith put up better pass-blocking numbers in 2022. His pressure rate was much better at 4.9%, placing 30th out of 63 qualified tackles. However, he benefited enormously from a Tampa Bay offense that got the ball out unfathomably quickly.

The 2022 Bucs averaged a league-low 2.28 seconds from snap to release, which was 0.21 seconds faster than the closest team. That was approximately the same difference between the No. 2 team and the No. 14 team. The 45-year-old version of Tom Brady essentially did nothing but throw quick passes, putting almost no responsibility on his offensive line. It’s hard to evaluate the pass-blocking skills of the offensive linemen in that kind of scheme.

If anything, it is extremely unimpressive that Smith’s pressure rate was only middle-of-the-pack despite playing in the quickest-release offense by a longshot. Smith also had a tendency to allow costly pressures, as he gave up six sacks and seven hits in just 13 games. That’s tough to do in an offense that has Tom Brady getting the ball out in 2.28 seconds.

On top of it all, Smith had 12 penalties on 908 offensive snaps in 2022, giving him an average of 13.2 per 1,000 snaps that was even worse than his 12.0 mark in 2023. Smith has always been penalty-prone, committing 85 penalties on 9,223 snaps in his career (9.2 per 1,000).

After his performance in 2022, all Smith could fetch on the open market was a one-year, $3 million deal. For him to be valued at such a low number despite being only 30 years old (relatively young for an accomplished lineman) with 124 career starts at left tackle, it tells you that the league was not fond of what he put on film.

Landing in Kansas City provided a great opportunity for Smith to prove 2022 was a fluke and that he could get back on track, but he failed to do that – notwithstanding his short run of mild playoff success. With two straight seasons of significant regression as he approaches 31 years old, Smith is no longer a player who can be trusted as a starter.

Scheme fit

Smith has played in two wildly different offenses over the past two seasons and struggled in both of them. So, it’s not as if you can blame his struggles on poor scheme fits and project him to play better in a different offense.

In the run game, Smith went from a gap-heavy offense in Tampa Bay to a zone-heavy offense in Kansas City, and neither one could lift him out of the run-blocking-grade cellar. Smith had a 25.5% zone rate in 2022, ranking third-lowest among qualified tackles, and in 2023, his zone rate was 54.3%, the 22nd-highest.

Smith graded almost identically poorly in both types of run schemes in each of the past two seasons. In 2022, he had a 42.1 zone-blocking grade at PFF and a 42.2 gap-blocking grade. In 2023, he had a 44.9 zone-blocking grade and a 45.0 gap-blocking grade.

Durability

Smith has played 136 out of 147 games in his career, although nine of the 11 missed games came in the past two years. In 2022, he missed two games with an elbow injury and two with a foot injury. He missed five games with a neck injury in 2023.

Perhaps these injuries are to blame for Smith’s decline in performance over the past two years, but as he nears 31 years old, it’s not a good thing if you have to bank on him being completely healthy to perform competently. He’s not going to be getting any more durable if he’s on the wrong side of 30 and has experienced a recent increase in injuries.

You’re going to be banged up on a weekly basis as an older offensive lineman. If you can’t play well through the injuries, you don’t have much value. It’s very concerning that Smith has not only become more injury-prone, but seen his production decline significantly alongside the increase in injuries.

Projected cost

Over The Cap projects Smith to be worth about $2.1 million per year on the open market. PFF predicted he will earn a one-year, $2.5 million deal.

The verdict

As a starter, it’s a flat-out “no.” There is nothing on Smith’s resume over the past two years that suggests he should be considered by any NFL team as a potential starter in 2024.

If the Jets want to sign Smith as a backup swing tackle who can provide veteran leadership, then by all means, bring him in. At one year and less than $3 million, you can do worse than a player with Smith’s experience.

Still, because Smith is a pretty well-known name as far as offensive lineman go, and because he has the cool story of being a Long Islander who said it would be a “dream” to play for the Jets, I’m sure some people are going to peg him as a starting solution over the next weeks.

Don’t buy it. They’re just going off name recognition and storylines. They didn’t look into the facts. We did that today. And what the facts show is a player who should be viewed as nothing more than a backup.