Entering the 2025 NFL season, the New York Jets’ offensive line has the rosiest outlook of any position on the team’s roster. It is chock-full of talent and poised to climb to the top of the league.
Only one player has faced any sort of drama: center Joe Tippmann, and even that “drama” is somewhat manufactured. Based on comments from general manager Darren Mougey and teammate John Simpson, some have speculated that Tippmann could be competing with free agent pickup Josh Myers to keep his starting job.
Most likely, though, it’s nothing more than offseason hoopla. Tippmann is only 24 years old and was a top 10 starting center in the NFL last season. Myers is a backup-level player who was paid like it.
Tippmann will be the Jets’ starting center. And expectations for him are high.
In fact, Pro Football Focus selected him as one of six NFL offensive linemen who are positioned to break out in 2025.
“Tippmann’s rookie season started with him playing guard, where he logged just 11 snaps during his college career at Wisconsin,” wrote PFF’s Dalton Wasserman. “Injuries to the Jets’ offensive line forced him back to his natural position at center, and he has started every game there since Week 9 of 2023.
“Since then, Tippmann’s 70.6 PFF overall grade ranks 14th among centers who have played at least 500 snaps. Given a full offseason as the established starting center, he ranked ninth in PFF overall grade and eighth in PFF run-blocking grade among qualifiers at the position in 2024. There were some lapses in pass protection, but his job wasn’t particularly easy due to the volume at which the Jets threw the ball last season.”
Wasserman proceeded to laud Tippmann’s fit in the projected offensive scheme of Tanner Engstrand, which, as we at Jets X-Factor have broken down, is expected to heavily rely on outside-zone concepts.
“The most fascinating part of Tippmann’s development this season will be his fit in Tanner Engstrand’s offensive system,” Wasserman said. “Over the past two seasons, the Detroit Lions — Engstrand’s former team — ran outside zone at the fourth-highest rate in the NFL. That should benefit the athletic Tippmann, whose 92.9 PFF run-blocking grade on those plays is the second-best among centers since he moved there in mid-2023. Of course, he fittingly sits behind the recently retired Frank Ragnow in those rankings.”
Jets fans should not read anything into the supposed competition between Tippmann and Myers. The latter, as shown by Jets X-Factor’s Joe Blewett on film, is a high-quality backup center for New York. The starting job belongs to Tippmann, and he could be in for a breakout third season.