The New York Jets made two waiver claims following Sunday’s roster cutdowns: kicker Blake Grupe and linebacker Trevin Wallace.

Grupe will compete with Jason Sanders, who was bumped to the practice squad, for the team’s kicking job. Wallace has a chance to be the Jets’ LB3 in Week 1.

However, the team still not address a gaping hole on its depth chart: interior offensive line depth.

The Jets need another backup IOL

Interior offensive line depth has been a concern for the Jets ever since an offseason in which they did little to address it. They were happy to walk into the summer with the likes of Xavier Newman and sixth-round rookie Anez Cooper as their top backups on the interior.

Newman ended up being waived as part of final roster cuts and signed to the practice squad. Cooper was placed on short-term injured reserve with a shoulder injury suffered in the preseason finale.

Now, the supposed holes in the depth chart (due to talent deficiencies) had become actual holes.

One of those holes was filled by Kohl Levao, a fifth-year, 28-year-old former UDFA who has never played a regular-season snap. However, Levao was released (alongside kicker Jason Sanders) to make room for the claims of Grupe and Wallace.

The Jets sufficiently addressed one of the two remaining holes by trading for former Raiders lineman Jordan Meredith. Boasting 20 career starts, the 28-year-old brings the experience and production that New York has been lacking within the second-string interior offensive line. He instantly becomes the Jets’ best backup interior lineman, and that would have been the case even if Newman and Cooper were on the roster.

The catch with Meredith, though, is that while he has starting experience at both guard (9 starts) and center (11 starts), he has been much more effective at guard.

According to Pro Football Focus, Meredith’s 80.8 overall grade as a guard in 2024 ranked sixth-best among NFL guards with at least 500 snaps. He was one spot behind Indianapolis Colts star Quenton Nelson.

But as the Raiders’ opening-week starting center in 2025, Meredith earned a 57.7 overall grade, placing 29th out of 34 qualified centers.

Technically, Meredith has enough experience to be trusted at either center or guard, and the Jets seem to view him as trusty in either spot, given their choice to release Newman, who was their projected backup center. Based on the numbers, though, it seems prudent to view Meredith primarily as a guard.

Since Meredith is the only backup interior lineman on the roster at the moment, the Jets certainly need another body in this group before the season begins, anyway. Given the difference between Meredith’s numbers at guard and center, it would make sense for the Jets to target a pure center with that roster spot.

At the moment, the Jets have eight offensive linemen on the 53-man roster, and Meredith is the only interior player among the three backups (Meredith, Max Mitchell, and Chukwuma Okorafor). Well, tackle Max Mitchell has minimal starting guard experience, but he was abysmal in the role, so he should not be considered part of the backup plans on the interior.

New York would be wise to add another backup interior lineman to the roster. Sure, Newman is on the practice squad and can be called up in an emergency, but he is on the practice squad for a reason. The Jets should try to find a true backup-quality center, not rely on a practice-squad-level player in Newman as part of their depth plans.

In Meredith, the Jets have found themselves a high-level backup guard. That’s a win. The question, though, is whether he qualifies as a high-level backup center.

An interesting factor in this equation is that the Jets have the flexibility to shuffle their starting lineup around to fill the hole at center if Josh Myers goes down. Right guard Joe Tippmann was drafted as a center and has 27 career starts at the position. If the Jets prefer, they could slide Tippmann to center and put Meredith at right guard instead of putting Meredith at center.

On paper, Tippmann at center and Meredith at right guard would make the Jets’ offensive line more talented cumulatively. However, this would require the Jets to change two offensive line positions instead of one.

Not only would left guard Dylan Parham have to play next to a new center, but right tackle Armand Membou would have to play next to a new right guard, while Tippmann would have to adjust to a new position with far more mental capacity on his plate. It would be a domino effect that could ruin the chemistry of the entire unit, all just to work around the fact that the Jets don’t have a backup center they can trust.

That’s why the Jets need to find a pure center who can simply step into Myers’ shoes.

Maybe they trust Meredith to do exactly that, despite the PFF numbers. It’s a risky proposition, though.

After all, when people make optimistic projections about Geno Smith’s 2026 season with the Jets, they often highlight the improvement from Las Vegas’s offensive line to New York’s offensive line. But Meredith was the communicative leader of that porous Raiders offensive line for the first 11 games. Could he really have been any better than his poor PFF grade suggested? It seems ambitious to suggest that.

Look at the evidence. The Raiders were so concerned about their center spot that they gave Tyler Linderbaum the largest contract in history for the position, and they still went on to use a third-round pick on Trey Zuhn III, a college tackle who projects as an NFL center. Then, Meredith was released from the team.

Center isn’t even Meredith’s natural position. He played zero collegiate snaps at center and did not play any NFL regular-season snaps at center until 2025.

Realistically, Meredith projects as a low- to mid-level backup center and a high-level backup guard. If the Jets choose to view him as a dual-threat backup, they would be ignoring the evidence on his resume.

So, sure, maybe Meredith can hold down backup duties at all three interior spots for the time being, at least based on his experience. And, sure, maybe the Jets could just slide Tippmann to center if they are uncomfortable with Meredith at center.

Neither scenario is ideal, though. The Jets should take their lack of a reliable backup center seriously.