The New York Jets have been presented with a golden opportunity.

According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, free agent center Ethan Pocic has been cleared by doctors to participate in training camp.

Here’s why this is the chance that New York has been waiting for.

The Jets’ center crisis

Hopes are high for the Jets’ offensive line going into 2026. The ascending unit boasts three homegrown top-50 picks aged 25-and-under, along with a 26-year-old free agent pickup in left guard Dylan Parham, who they believe is an upgrade over his predecessor.

But as they often say, an offensive line is only as strong as its weakest link.

And the Jets still have a very weak link in the starting five, smack-dab in the middle: center Josh Myers.

The 28-year-old is coming off a poor season as the Jets’ 17-game starting center. Myers’ 52.9 overall grade from Pro Football Focus ranked 33rd out of 34 qualified centers. He was a liability in all areas; his 51.7 run-blocking grade ranked third-worst, his 28 pressures allowed were the third-most, and his five penalties were tied for the most.

This was no outlier for Myers, who has ranked no higher than 25th in PFF’s center rankings across four seasons as a primary starter. Despite being a second-round pick of the Green Bay Packers in 2021, he has never shown the stuff of a competent starting center in the NFL.

However, the ability to play like a low-end starter does make Myers a solid backup. In fact, that’s precisely who the Jets signed him to be.

When Myers initially joined the Jets last March, he only signed a one-year, $2 million deal to be the Jets’ backup center. He was set to play that role until right guard Alijah Vera-Tucker suffered a season-ending injury before Week 1, pushing starting center Joe Tippmann to right guard and Myers to the starting center spot.

Despite Myers’ continued struggles as a starter, the Jets inked him to a two-year, $11 million extension during the season. The deal included just $6.2 million in guaranteed money, though, so it still indicated that New York viewed Myers as a backup moving forward.

Center seemed like an obvious need for the Jets going into the offseason. Outside of quarterback and wide receiver, it was arguably the offensive position with the third-most room for improvement.

Yet, the Jets completely neglected the position. They did not add a single center via free agency, trade, or the draft. That not only leaves Myers as the penciled-in starting center with no competition, but it also leaves them with Xavier Newman as their projected backup. Newman has logged five starts in four NFL seasons and struggled mightily in those.

New York has a center crisis. It’s an uncommon sight around these parts, as the center position has been one of the Jets’ few consistent strengths throughout franchise history. Quite a few standouts have snapped the ball for New York, and all of the team’s memorable seasons have occurred with one of them on the roster.

A whopping 56% of the franchise’s all-time regular season games featured one of these four centers: John Schmitt (1964-73), Joe Fields (1975-87), Kevin Mawae (1998-2005), or Nick Mangold (2006-16), a quartet that combined for 14 All-Pro appearances with the Jets. In all 12 of the franchise’s playoff wins, one of those players was the starting center.

The Jets franchise has yet to prove it can win without a reliable center. It makes it all the more peculiar that New York chose not to pursue upgrades in the 2026 offseason.

But with Pocic emerging as an option, the Jets have a chance to steady the ship.

Pocic, 30, was a second-round pick of the Seattle Seahawks in 2017. He spent five seasons in Seattle, starting 40 games, before settling in as the Cleveland Browns’ starter from 2022-25, starting 57 games.

At his peak, Pocic was one of the best centers in the NFL. He was PFF’s third-ranked center in the 2022 season (78.9 overall grade).

While Pocic never replicated that performance, he remained a steady starter over the next three seasons. Among centers to play at least 500 snaps, Pocic earned rankings of 11th (71.4 overall grade), 18th (63.6 overall grade), and 17th (63.8 overall grade) in the 2023, 2024, and 2025 seasons, respectively.

This past season, Pocic was playing solid football before tearing his Achilles in Week 14. He allowed a pressure rate of just 2.7% in pass protection, ranking 14th out of 34 qualified centers, an especially impressive mark considering he was blocking for quarterbacks like Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders, who held the ball for eternities. Pocic also committed just two penalties.

Although he had declined from his days as an elite center, last season’s version of Pocic would still be an immense upgrade for New York over Myers. Pocic was an average starter, while Myers was a bottom-of-the-barrel starter.

The question, of course, is what Pocic will look like in 2026 as a 30-year-old coming off a torn Achilles in December. That’s a legitimate concern.

At the very least, though, signing Pocic to compete with Myers would be extremely worthwhile for the Jets. Even if Pocic doesn’t look quite right, he would still be an upgrade as the backup over Newman.

Most likely, a 30-year-old center coming off a torn Achilles will not demand much guaranteed money on the open market. The Jets should be able to take a flier on Pocic for a reasonable price.

Few teams in the NFL have more to gain by signing Pocic than New York. At worst, he’d be an upgrade as the backup center. At best, though, the Jets could upgrade from poor to league-average at the worst position on their starting offensive line… leaving them without a weak link.

Pursuing Pocic should be a no-brainer for the Jets.