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The Jets were between a rock and a hard place with Bryce Huff.
It probably would have been too pricy to put the defensive end franchise tag on him, which Jacksonville did with Josh Allen, and is worth $24 million this year.
That is too high for a situational pass rusher. Huff is not a full-time end like Allen due to his size which hurts him against the run. Like some other Jets defensive ends, he’s not great at setting the edge. The Jets must improve at setting the edge this year with too many running backs getting outside on them. Nobody talks about this, but it’s a problem.
Guys like Allen, and Brian Burns who just got paid big bucks by the Giants after being traded there by the Panthers, never come off the field.
And also, after the Jets drafted defensive ends in the first round two years in a row, and one of them, Jermaine Johnson, will be in line for a huge contract in a year or two, and Will McDonald got $16 million guaranteed last year and perhaps went overboard on the John Franklin-Myers contract, how much money are you going to spend at one position in a cap sport?
You could argue the Jets didn’t plan for Huff’s deal, drafting two defensive ends in the first round, but clearly they didn’t even view Huff as much of a factor at the beginning of the 2022 season, when they made him a healthy scratch the first three games of the year, after a good training camp and preseason. That was surprising, and had to tick off Huff, and who knows if it impacted the negotiations.
Huff’s departure was collateral damage of the Jets not liking any of the offensive linemen available with the 15th pick of the 2022 draft, and going with edge-rusher McDonald. It was assumed the Jets would go offensive line there, but the top tier had already been picked, so they would have had to reach for somebody at 15, and decided not to do that, though some think they reached for McDonald. Time will tell on that one.
But once they picked McDonald, after picking Johnson the year before, the chances of them meeting Huff’s contract demands this year, after a 10-sack season, were basically nil.
So Howie Roseman, a GM who likes to make a splash, swooped in and signed Huff.
The irony of Roseman signing Huff is that they put a really good edge-rusher on the market, Hassan Reddick, who also struggles against the run. So he essentially going with a younger talented edge-rusher (Huff, who turns 26 in April) who struggles against the run over an older one (Reddick, who will turn 30 in September).
Roseman, whose Eagles collapsed last year down the stretch and in the playoffs, and fired both coordinators, came out of the free agency gate with a bang, signing Huff and Barkley, helping take people’s attention away from last year’s debacle. But some wonder how far the Eagles will go with a money ball, middle manager coach, Nick Sirianni, who is clearly controlled by the GM, owner and analytics department, and has very little power. The Eagles were a dysfunctional mess last year.
But getting back to the Jets, the loss of Huff will hurt them, but will hurt less if McDonald emerges in year two. The Iowa State product must get bigger and stronger, which could happen in a full off-season workout program. He was a little too slender last year.
March 12, 2024
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