It is imperative that the New York Jets draft an offensive tackle early in the 2025 NFL draft.
Outside of this very obvious need following Morgan Moses’ free-agent departure, the Jets have another interesting conundrum regarding their collection of offensive line starters.
While Armand Membou or Will Campbell could fundamentally change the look of New York’s offensive line, the team will need to take care of a few other things to ensure this line remains together past the 2025 season.
Jets’ Contract Concerns at Guard
The selection of a right tackle in the first round would solidify the offensive line for the 2025 season. If the Jets want to make sure the group remains intact for the long term, they’ll need to move quickly to extend both of their guards.
Both Alijah Vera-Tucker and John Simpson will be free agents after the 2025 season.
AVT is in the final year of his rookie deal. He carries a cap hit of over $15 million. Simpson signed a two-year deal last season with the previous regime but is coming off the best year of his career.
Simpson had his 2024 season graded by Pro Football Focus to a strong 77.3. That grade was 16th out of all guards in the NFL (135 of them to be exact). Vera-Tucker was a just a little bit better than Simpson with a grade of 77.7, placing him 15th among all guards.
In short, both AVT and Simpson hitting the open market wouldn’t be very good news for the Jets after this season. Solidifying the offensive line is the first step to truly taking the next step as a serious team.
And getting a deal done now is just good business.
Offensive Guard Market
It would make sense for New York general manager Darren Mougey to come to terms on long-term deals with both Vera-Tucker and Simpson before they hit the open market.
Why? The market for guards is beginning to get out of control.
Four different players on the open market in 2025 received deals worth at least $10 million in per-year averages. Few came off the consistent years that both Simpson and Vera-Tucker just experienced:
- Aaron Banks (65.4 PFF grade, 50th of 135): 4 years, $77M ($27M guaranteed)
- Will Fries (86.9, 4th): 5 years, $87.7M ($44M guaranteed)
- Patrick Mekari (60.0, 74th): 3 years, $37.5M ($22.5M guaranteed)
- Mekhi Becton (75.2, 21st): 2 years, $20M ($6.9M guaranteed)
Another solid year for the Jets’ two guards, and that price is only going up.
If there’s a single position group to pay an entire group over $10 million per year eventually, the offensive line is the best place to make that investment. A strong offensive line can make average players look great.
And they can make great players look like All-Timers.
Draft Meaning
With both AVT and Simpson potentially hitting free agency next season, it is imperative that the Jets move forward with drafting a right tackle in the first round of the 2025 draft.
It’s plausible to expect at least one of Vera-Tucker and Simpson will be brought back in 2026. If that ends up being the case, having to worry about both the right tackle position (if it is ignored early in the 2025 draft) and a starting guard role would make it that much harder to field a consistently great offensive line.
That is what we are talking about here.
Extending both of their starting guards and drafting a tackle can make the Jets’ offensive line the best it has been since the Rex Ryan group of the late 2000s. Otherwise, it will be a group that is simply good but never great enough to be among the best in the league.
This is where a proactive general manager will come in very handy.
If Mougey can lock up both Vera-Tucker and Simpson, the Jets’ offensive line could be one of the NFL’s better groups for the first time in years.
