Friday Night Whispers

With all the Jets’ offensive line injuries, it might seem like a good thing that veteran tackle Duane Brown was back at practice this week.

He has been out since Week Two with a hip injury.

The Jets suffered a couple of offensive line injuries last week to interior linemen Connor McGovern and Wes Schweitzer, who both landed on injured reserve this week.

But Brown is a one-position player, and it’s not on the interior. He’s strictly a left tackle. He hasn’t played right tackle since his sophomore year at Virginia Tech, and he’s never played guard in his life.

So Brown really can’t help them with their interior line issues.

And he can’t help them at right tackle, where Max Mitchell has been a little inconsistent.

Brown is strictly a left tackle, so he’s just Mekhi Becton insurance at this point.

Now, considering Becton has struggled a little at left tackle, including a rough game against the Giants’ Kayvon Thibodeaux last Sunday, and the Philadelphia Eagles’ Josh Sweat the week before, some might argue, why don’t you move Becton back to right tackle where he started the season before the Brown injury, and make Brown the left tackle.

Well, how many times are you going to move Becton around? It’s not good to keep switching a tackle between the left and right side, where all the footwork and hand placements need to be reversed, so they probably won’t want to do that at this time . . .

So who is the center going to be this week?

With McGovern and Schweitzer out, will be it be Joe Tippmann who missed the last game with a quad injury. That would be the best case scenario for the Jets, but they are still working through whether Tippmann will be ready this week. He was limited in practice on Thursday and Friday.

If Tippmann can’t go, who will they go with?

Many would assume they would just roll with Xavier Newman-Johnson since he filled in after the in-game injuries to McGovern and Schweitzer.

But not so fast, as Lee Corso iikes to say.

Chris Glaser is a possibility.

Glaser, who the Jets signed off the Dallas Cowboys practice squad early this week, was on the Jets’ practice squad some of last year and this year, is more a pure center than Newman-Johnson, who has more of a history at guard.

Glaser played center at the University of Virginia, and then practiced there a lot with the Jets, and also played there some in the preseason this summer.

So if Tippmann can’t go, it could be Glaser, not Newman-Johnson . . .

Expect wide receiver Randall Cobb back this week, after missing the Jets-Giants game.

Cobb said his AC shoulder joint just wasn’t ready last week, but it is this week. He said today he’s feeling much better.

Some might say, what is the big deal getting Cobb back since he only has three catches on the year?

Well, first of all, the limited catches aren’t his fault. He’s generally not the first read in mainly a one-read passing attack.

Getting Cobb back should be a good thing for the Jets, they just have to dial up his name on a few more first reads.

November 3, 2023

Premium will return by 11:30 pm on Monday.