To extend or not to extend? That is the question.
While most of the current New York Jets discourse concerns Aaron Rodgers, the preponderance of evidence suggests that team and player will move on this offseason. Once that is resolved, all other offseason dominos can start to fall.
Lost in the shuffle is the fact that one Jets player is set to play on his fifth-year option next season. Joe Douglas’ 2021 draft will always be remembered for the Zach Wilson whiff, but picking Alijah Vera-Tucker has a more mixed legacy thus far. Despite Vera-Tucker’s back-to-back season-ending injuries in 2022-23, his 2024 season finally shows what Jets fans have been waiting for all along.
Vera-Tucker has been pristine as a pass-blocker by every available metric. According to NFL Next Gen Stats, his 4.3% pressure rate ranks third-best out of 76 qualified guards (min. 150 pass-blocking snaps). He has allowed a 4.7% pressure rate in one-on-one situations, the fifth-best. His 3.23-second time to pressure ranks 14th.
Sports Info Solution is equally bullish on Vera-Tucker’s pass-blocking performance. They list Vera-Tucker with a 1.7% blown block rate, the ninth-best out of 76 qualifiers.
The metrics aren’t quite as elite for Vera-Tucker in the run-blocking game. His 75.3 Pro Football Focus run-blocking grade ranks 13th out of 70 qualifiers (min. 150 run-blocking snaps).* However, his 3.1% blown block rate according to SIS ranks 52nd.
* Note: As I have previously stated, I utilize PFF grades in an evaluation only when few or no other metrics exist in that area, such as run-blocking, because of extreme subjectivity. I continue to utilize PFF counting statistics where I feel they are superior to other metrics or they are the only metrics available.
Overall, Vera-Tucker has been a great pass-blocker and a good run-blocker with a few more blips on the radar in the run game. Guards like that usually get paid big bucks.
Given how Vera-Tucker has played, the question is whether the Jets should extend him in the offseason. His fifth-year option is worth $15.313 million. There are currently 12 guards in the NFL with a higher APY.
Statistically, Vera-Tucker has outperformed 2024 free agent signees Robert Hunt ($20 million APY), Mike Onwenu ($19 million), and Jonah Jackson ($17 million) this year. Hunt’s 2023 season was better than Vera-Tucker’s this year, but Vera-Tucker has been better this year than Onwenu and Jackson were last year. Therefore, Vera-Tucker would likely command a contract with an APY in that neighborhood.
Ordinarily, extending Vera-Tucker would be a no-brainer. He probably won’t make the Pro Bowl due to the general futility of the Jets’ roster, but he has played at a very high level. He’s a cornerstone offensive line player that the Jets could continue to build around.
However, his injury situation makes things tricky. It may not be wise to overlook the fact that Vera-Tucker played a combined 12 games in 2022-23 after suffering back-to-back season-ending injuries. Although he has played 14 of 16 games in 2024 thus far, he’s been questionable in many of them due to ankle injuries.
Vera-Tucker was clearly able to recover his play level post Achilles tear. The fear of regression is no longer present the way it was when the Jets took the risk by picking up his option to begin with. Still, the fear of another devastating injury is ever present.
This will be a difficult conundrum for the Jets’ new brain trust to navigate. New general managers don’t feel the same level of commitment to a player as the general manager who drafted them. If Joe Douglas were still the Jets’ GM, the chances of signing Vera-Tucker to an extension might be higher, particularly since he was the one to pick up Vera-Tucker’s option. He clearly believed in Vera-Tucker.
Would a new GM feel the same way, though? From an outsider’s perspective, Vera-Tucker is a very good but oft-injured player. Is he worth committing to in an evaluative year?
There are two separate questions here: what the Jets should do, and what they will do.
Carrying Vera-Tucker on a $15.3 million cap hit is manageable but not ideal. Generally, when a player signs an extension, the early cap hits in the deal will be much lower. When a player signs an extension, the fifth-year option is not usually ripped up; the extension simply takes effect after the option year. Still, teams will restructure the option into the rest of the deal, pushing the high cap hits to the later years of the deal.
In my opinion, pushing Vera-Tucker’s fifth-year option into the future would not be smart business for the Jets. They’re not realistically in a position to compete in 2025, which means they should not lower cap hits in 2025 at the expense of future years’ cap hits. Therefore, Vera-Tucker’s $15.3 million cap hit should not be factored into the extension equation.
The bigger question is whether the Jets would be able to re-sign Vera-Tucker after the 2025 season if he equals or exceeds his 2024 performance. What happened with Bryce Huff could easily happen again. There are no guarantees that a team can re-sign a player who hits free agency, even if the team gets first dibs on trying to negotiate with the player.
On the flip side, what happens if Vera-Tucker signs the deal and then immediately gets hurt? That’s what happened to the Rams with Jonah Jackson.
Jackson had played 25 out of a possible 34 games from 2022-23 before signing a three-year, $51 million deal in the 2024 offseason. He missed extended time with a shoulder injury and then was benched due to poor performance after he returned. He was not nearly as injured as Vera-Tucker before signing his deal, playing 13 and 12 games in 2022-23 compared to Vera-Tucker’s 7 and 5.
On the other hand, Mekhi Becton has played 15 of 16 games this season for the Eagles after playing 16 of 17 last year for the Jets. He’s been gimpy at times like Vera-Tucker, but he’s been able to maintain overall health after being constantly injured for several consecutive seasons.
The risk of new injuries is quite real, but newfound durability is also possible.
What should they do?
I think you can argue either way about what the Jets should do. I lean towards extending him, which is a reversal from what I wrote just a few weeks ago. At the time, the only question I discussed was whether the Jets should trade him.
A big part of my thought process is the way the Jets’ offensive line has played as a whole this season. According to PFF, the Jets’ pass-blocking efficiency* ranks sixth-best in the NFL at 87.6. The Jets’ composite run-blocking grade of 67.3 also ranks 12th. That kind of two-way performance is an incredible foundation on which to build a future roster — and Vera-Tucker is a critical part of it.
* Pass-blocking efficiency “measures pressures allowed on a per-snap basis with weighting toward sacks allowed,” per the PFF website.
Some Jets fans would claim that these superficial numbers belie the truth of the Jets’ offensive line performance. However, as Jets X-Factor’s Michael Nania described, the deeper numbers support the idea that the Jets’ pass-blocking has been very good if not great, even when adjusting for Aaron Rodgers’ quick release time. The film backs up the numbers.
The Jets’ run-blocking is also better than it has been given credit for. Overall, for the season, Jets running backs have averaged 4.4 expected yards per carry, per NFL Next Gen Stats. That ranks 13th out of 32 teams. Since Week 6, it is 4.8, tied for the best in the NFL.
Rather than blocking, the biggest issue with the Jets’ running game is their running backs’ complete inability to break tackles and make defenders miss.
Specifically, Breece Hall has the second-lowest rate of missed tackles forced (16.1%) among 42 running backs with at least 100 carries. He has also looked less explosive, which is backed up by the film. As bad as the Jets’ run-blocking was early in the season, the situation quietly flipped as the season progressed without a corresponding shift in the narrative.
The Jets have the potential to field an above-average offensive line at worst. That’s a luxury they have not had since the Rex Ryan days, and it’s one they should fight to maintain.
Think about it. Ben Johnson has received rave reviews for his ingenuity as the Lions’ offensive coordinator and Jared Goff’s resurgence. However, both Johnson and Goff come with a caveat: “Look at the surrounding weapons.” That starts with an elite offensive line. (Detroit actually ranks 16th in pass-blocking efficiency; their offensive line’s true dominance lies in the run game.)
The Jets don’t have a cast of characters like Amon-Ra St. Brown, Sam LaPorta, Jahmyr Gibbs, David Montgomery, and Jameson Williams. They also don’t have anyone at Penei Sewell’s level. However, building stability on the offensive line is a critical step in being able to build out a competitive team.
The Jets’ quarterback situation is still a mess and a big unknown, but regardless of who they put under center, having a strong offensive line foundation greatly increases the chances of success.
Better offensive line coaching could also lead to better cohesiveness. One of the issues on the line has been miscommunication rather than individual blown blocks among the linemen. That’s usually a coaching issue rather than a player issue. Despite this, the Jets’ line has still played well as a whole.
Therefore, I think the Jets should do everything possible to keep their best offensive linemen. Vera-Tucker is the first on the list (although I would argue that John Simpson deserves an extension, too).
As far as what the Jets will do, it’s impossible to know. We don’t even know who their general manager and coach will be. Philosophies vary widely when it comes to cap allocation. For example, Seahawks general manager John Schneider is on the record saying that guards are “overdrafted and overpaid.” (It’s hardly surprising that the Seahawks’ interior offensive line has been a disaster during his tenure.)
My guess, though, is that unless the Jets’ new regime decides to tear it all down, they will try to negotiate an extension with Vera-Tucker. Whether they can come to an agreement is a different matter; the Jets likely won’t want to give Vera-Tucker the $20 million per year that Robert Hunt received, but Vera-Tucker may feel he deserves it. His APY will undoubtedly fall in the $17-20 million range.
(Of course, the guaranteed money and the structure of the payouts are far more important than the raw APY number. For example, Robert Hunt’s deal may actually be a three-year, $63 million deal without any restructures. If the Rams release Jackson after this season, he will have made $25 million for one year.)
So, the really long-winded answer to the question about extending Vera-Tucker is “probably.” Extension talks often don’t happen until post-draft at the earliest, and we will have a pretty complete picture of the Jets’ offseason direction by then.
Right now, though, that direction may be the most difficult to predict in years, making this article highly speculative.
