The New York Jets’ offensive line is in its best shape in years. Left tackle Olu Fashanu, left guard John Simpson, center Joe Tippmann, and right guard Alijah Vera-Tucker comprise 80% of what could be one of the NFL’s better starting offensive lines in 2025.
However, the right tackle spot still yearns to be addressed. As of March 24, the Jets do not have a clear-cut starter in place at the position. They lost Morgan Moses in free agency and have yet to adequately replace him.
New York still has the time and options to find a sufficient placeholder starter in free agency. There is also an opportunity to bolster the position through the draft.
But there is a third potential avenue to filling the hole: development from within.
This is a method of roster construction that has long eluded the New York Jets franchise. Mired by one weak coaching staff after the next, New York has been so poor at developing its own talent that it has always felt as if the only way they could fill a hole is by adding a new player from the outside.
That does not have to be the case; and it cannot be the case if the goal is to win a championship. The NFL’s most consistently successful teams excel at developing talent from within. It is an imperative aspect of building a complete roster that can compete for titles. Free agency and the draft can only fill out so much of the depth chart. To max out the team’s potential, the coaching staff needs to cultivate gems from unexpected places within their own roster.
Aaron Glenn hopes to end the Jets’ long-lasting run of coaching staffs that fail to establish a culture of talent development. In this quest to make the Jets a talent-developing factory, the offensive line is one of the most important positions to address.
The Jets have long struggled to develop offensive linemen. As a result, they have been forced to allocate large sums of draft capital and cap space to the unit, hurting their ability to improve other parts of the roster. And when even those investments fall flat (such as Mekhi Becton and Laken Tomlinson), you get the end result: a complete disaster of roster construction.
The offensive line makes up 45% of the offensive players on any given play. It is too large of a unit to be filled out with five first-round picks or blockbuster free agents and leave the team in a healthy spot to build out the entire roster. Most great teams are able to fill at least one of the offensive line’s starting spots with an under-the-radar player.
Could the Jets aim to do that at right tackle?
If they played a game today, the Jets would have three realistic options at right tackle: Chukwuma Okorafor, Max Mitchell, and Carter Warren.
It is far from an ideal group of competitors. Okorafor was benched in each of the past two seasons, and the Jets signed him to a deal with only about a quarter-million dollars in guaranteed money, which hardly shows confidence in his abilities. Mitchell and Warren were fourth-round picks of Joe Douglas who have looked like liabilities in their careers.
But as Darren Mougey continues his economical roster-building approach in his rookie year as a general manager, it would not be shocking if he elected to gamble on Glenn’s coaching staff to muster up a gem from within to fill the final starting spot of an otherwise solid offensive line.
Okorafor (27), Warren (26), and Mitchell (25) are each under 28 years old. They are not exactly spring chickens, but they are young enough to possibly have some form of a late breakout left in the tank.
Let’s unpack their resumes to see if there is anything for the Jets to build upon.
Max Mitchell
A fourth-round pick (111th overall) in 2022, Mitchell has played 30 games with 14 starts across three seasons. In total, he has logged 1,039 offensive snaps.
Mitchell’s body of work is well below the caliber of a starting tackle. According to Pro Football Focus, he has yielded 53 total pressures on 720 pass-blocking snaps in his career, which is a pressure rate of 7.4%. For perspective, that would have ranked 80th out of 105 qualified tackles in the 2024 season. The position average was 5.7%.
Mitchell has also struggled as a run blocker. His composite career run-blocking grade at PFF is 53.8, which would have ranked 82nd out of 105 qualifiers.
The only area where Mitchell has performed well is avoiding penalties, committing just three in his career.
Coming out of the draft, Mitchell seemed like more of a high-floor prospect than a high-ceiling one. He generated dominant production against Sun Belt competition, which suggested he had some degree of reliability going into the NFL, but his athletic testing was well below average, as he posted a Relative Athletic Score of 5.52 (the median for drafted players is generally around 7.5).
Most notably, Mitchell ran a 5.32 in the forty (37th percentile for tackles) at a relatively slight 307 pounds (34th percentile). He also posted a subpar 21 bench press reps, supporting the “lack of strength” concern that was often cited on his scouting reports. Mitchell’s three-cone (8.09s, 18th percentile) and vertical jump (25 inches, 17th percentile) were also poor.
All of these concerns have appeared at the next level. Mitchell looks sluggish in open space and is overwhelmed by powerful defenders quite easily, whether it is with the bull rush in pass protection or when trying to set an edge in the run game. He also displays poor technique, frequently leaning into blocks.
The bright side for Mitchell is that he did show a smidgen of promise in the 2024 season. He posted career-bests in pressure rate (5.9%) and PFF’s run-blocking grade (64.1). Mitchell did this while playing three different positions, logging 139 snaps at left tackle, 47 at left guard, and 35 at right tackle.
The problem is that Mitchell played a career-low 224 offensive snaps, so it is too small of a sample to be used as evidence of definitive progress. Additionally, he struggled in his lone appearance at right tackle, yielding three pressures on 25 pass-blocking snaps (12% pressure rate) and earning a brutal 36.2 run-blocking grade.
Still just 25 years old with minor signs of progress in 2024, there is a slight chance Mitchell’s best days could be ahead of him, but the overall body of work is quite poor. Mitchell is unreliable as a backup, let alone a starter.
Carter Warren
After selecting Mitchell in the fourth round of the 2022 draft, Douglas took Warren in 2023’s fourth round. Across two seasons, Warren has played in 14 games with six starts.
Warren’s career resume is even more troubling than Mitchell’s. The Pittsburgh product has yielded 31 total pressures on 355 pass-blocking snaps, which is a pressure rate of 8.7%. This would have ranked 93rd out of 105 qualifiers in 2024. As a run blocker, Warren has earned a composite career grade of 51.9, which would have placed 86th.
Warren is not as clean as Mitchell in the penalty department, but he does a decent job, committing three on 542 career snaps.
After splitting time between right tackle (294 snaps) and left tackle (107 snaps) in his rookie year, Warren exclusively played right tackle across his 141 snaps in 2024, and he struggled mightily. Warren coughed up 11 pressures on 97 pass-blocking snaps (11.3% pressure rate).
The primary concern with Warren’s trajectory is his age. Despite being drafted a year later than Mitchell, Warren is about nine months older – and Mitchell himself turned 23 as a rookie. Warren was a 24-year-old rookie and is already 26 going into his third season. If he has not shown any development by now, will he ever?
Warren brings excellent length to the tackle position (35⅜” arms), but it hardly matters because his agility and technique are abysmal.
While there might be an inkling of hope with Mitchell, there is little to hang onto with Warren.
Chukwuma Okorafor
A late third-round pick (92nd overall) of the Steelers in 2018, Okorafor was drafted in a similar region to Mitchell and Warren. The difference is that Okorafor has been a long-term starter in the NFL.
Okorafor has started 60 of his 78 career games. From 2020 until midway through 2023, he started 55 games at right tackle for Pittsburgh.
Okorafor offers a much more respectable track record of production than Mitchell and Warren. For his career, he has allowed 113 pressures on 2,449 pass-blocking snaps. This is a pressure rate of 4.6%, which is actually quite solid. It would have ranked 31st out of 105 qualified tackles in the 2024 season.
As a run blocker, Okorafor is considered slightly better than Mitchell and Warren, although he is still below average. His career composite run-blocking grade at PFF is 57.8, which would have ranked 70th of 105.
Okorafor has committed 30 penalties on 3,947 offensive snaps. This is a rate of 7.6 penalties per 1,000 snaps, which is better than the 2024 positional average (9.2).
It can be argued that Okorafor’s career body of work is sufficient for a stopgap right tackle, and a bargain for his price tag of $757K guaranteed. While his run blocking is mediocre, his pressure rate is comfortably within starter-caliber territory.
However, Okorafor’s pass-blocking production becomes less impressive when you contextualize it.
Okorafor’s career pass-blocking numbers are significantly inflated by his two seasons with an aging Ben Roethlisberger, who was releasing the ball unfathomably quickly at the tail end of his career. Roethlisberger averaged 2.17 seconds to throw in 2020 and 2.26 seconds in 2021, ranking first among quarterbacks each season. Roethlisberger’s average 2.21-second release time from 2020-21 was 0.16 seconds ahead of second-ranked Tom Brady (2.37).
Across these two seasons, Okorafor yielded 49 pressures on 1,365 pass-blocking snaps, which is a fantastic pressure rate of 3.6%. However, outside of his 2020-21 stretch, Okorafor has allowed 64 pressures on 1,084 pass-blocking snaps, which is a much less impressive pressure rate of 5.9%. This would have ranked 55th out of 105 qualifiers in 2024.
The season after Roethlisberger’s retirement, Okorafor allowed a career-high 41 pressures. This was tied for the fourth-most among right tackles in 2022, although it should be noted that Okorafor also played the fourth-most pass-blocking snaps at the position. His pressure rate was 6%.
The Steelers are one of the most well-coached and strongest drafting teams in the NFL. For that reason, it is worth placing stock into the fact that, after the 2022 season, Pittsburgh was unimpressed enough with Okorafor to justify selecting Georgia’s Broderick Jones with the 14th overall pick as Okorafor’s eventual replacement.
In 2023, while Okorafor improved to allowing 11 pressures on 272 pass-blocking snaps (4% pressure rate) without the help of a quick-release quarterback (Pittsburgh averaged over 2.7 seconds to throw in 2023), he experienced a major uptick in penalties. Okorafor finished the season with eight penalties on just 436 snaps (18.3 per 1,000 snaps). This led to Okorafor being benched for Jones midway through the season.
In 2024, Okorafor started the season at left tackle for the Patriots and was benched in the first quarter after two horrendous drives. He left the team after the game and did not play again in 2024.
Overall, Okorafor’s resume is that of a mid-level backup. That is what the Jets valued him as on the open market, and it is the role he should ideally play on this team.
There are some signs of hope that Okorafor could be a decent place-holder starter. There is value in the fact that Pittsburgh counted on him as a starter for so long, and his career pressure rates are fairly respectable for a stopgap tackle, even if you isolate his numbers outside of the 2020 and 2021 seasons. If you can get middle-of-the-pack pass protection from a cheap stopgap tackle, that is pretty good.
However, Okorafor has never shown many flashes of hope in the run game, which could be concerning for a Jets team that appears poised to establish a run-first mentality in 2025. His stock is also at a low point after the last two seasons. He was benched in back-to-back years, showing an extreme penalty spike in 2023 followed by unplayable performance (and quitting on the team) in 2024, although he was at left tackle in New England.
So… do the Jets have a breakout candidate at right tackle?
In all likelihood, this group is probably to weak for the Jets to rely on in any way, shape, or form.
Whether you are being economical or not, and whether you are competing for a title or not, it will always be irresponsible to deliberately throw a weak starting offensive lineman on the field without at least making an attempt to upgrade over him. It puts the quarterback’s safety at risk and hamstrings the upside of every player on offense.
The Jets should still look to add a higher-floor veteran to this group. This would save them from a worst-case scenario where they roll with one of their in-house right tackles, only for them to sink the entire line (and the entire offense) by being, well, exactly who they have always been.
Even if the Jets are dead-set on being economical and banking on their coaching staff, bringing in another higher-floor free agent does not obstruct those goals. If one of Okorafor, Mitchell, or Warren undergoes a surprise breakout to demand the starting spot, then so be it. However, these players’ resumes are too weak for the Jets to bet that one of them will exceed expectations this year. They combined for a large sample of well-below-average production over the past three years.
If they are wise, the Jets will make another investment at right tackle. Still, it is worth considering whether the Jets may attempt to roll the dice on their staff’s talent development skills to try and fill one of the OL spots cheaply. That would not be a smart bet without adding another security blanket as a fallback, but it is a possibility to keep in mind.
