The Jets’ Mekhi Becton waiting game has lasted a while, and this lengthy delay has led to doubts about his living up to the potential he showed as a rookie in 2020. But the Jets do have a timetable for their large left (or right) tackle.
Robert Saleh said Wednesday the team expects Becton to practice when training camp opens July 26, via Rich Cimini of ESPN.com. Becton later said he is close to 100% (Twitter links). Since suffering a dislocated kneecap and sprained MCL in Week 1 of last season, Becton has been on the mend. He did not show for OTAs but has been at Jets minicamp, though not as a participant.
Issues about Becton’s weight and his position continue to surround the Jets’ offensive line. Becton was connected to being over 400 pounds at the end of last season, and the team was not happy with his conditioning before he sustained the knee injury last year. Saleh did not confirm Wednesday if Becton is currently at a Jets-preferred weight, and Becton later declined to share his present weight. Doubts aside, Saleh said the third-year Louisville alum is a “transcendent” talent when healthy, Cimini tweets.
Health issues have plagued Becton since his rookie year. While the team’s then-unquestioned left tackle only missed two full games in 2020, he needed to be subbed out at points in others for health reasons. George Fant‘s play at left tackle last year has thrust the ex-basketball convert to a place in which he very well could relocate Becton up front. Saleh said the team is not sure if Becton will be the Jets’ first-string left tackle to start training camp, but the prospect of Fant playing there and Becton switching to the right side has been floated this offseason.
The Jets were connected to tackles in the first round, but they veered toward more pressing needs, giving Becton better odds at keeping a starting job. The team did, however, host veteran Riley Reiff on a recent visit. Reiff would seemingly represent Becton insurance. The team lost 2021 right tackle Morgan Moses in free agency, clearing a path for a Fant-Becton tackle tandem. Fant has experience on both the left and right sides, primarily playing right tackle during Becton’s 2020 rookie year. It will be interesting to see how the Jets configure their O-line — one that now has ex-49er Laken Tomlinson joining Alijah Vera-Tucker at guard — come camp.
The guy doesn’t want it pets move on
Let’s
Lol, calm down. He’s shown he’s capable of playing tackle at a solid NFL level and he’s owed less than $11 million over the next two years. He needs to show he can get on the field and stay on it, but saying move on already is goofy.
True, but we are talking about the Jets here. They (and many of their fans) specialize in goofy.
Believe me, I get it. I’m a Jets fan. It certainly takes a psychic toll.
“Health issues have plagued Becton since his rookie year. While the team’s then-unquestioned left tackle only missed two full games in 2020, he needed to be subbed out at points in others for health reasons”
If this comment by the author is correct, that doesn’t exactly prove to anyone that he’s capable of playing at a solid NFL level, let alone playing the premier position on the line with the QB’s health at stake…….sounds more like his replacement (Fant) is the guy that’s proving he’s capable of playing tackle at a solid NFL level.
Mecki needs to shed some baby fat, and decide whether he’s a foundation lineman, or just another flash in the pan who ends up on multiple teams who think they can fix him by the time his rookie contract expires.
He was a good tackle as a rookie, which is hard to do and what I’m referring to. Obviously he needs to get healthy and in shape, which I also said. They need two tackles. Becton played both sides in college. If Fant and Becton can be those guys, great. But you’re talking about him like he’s Greg Robinson, and he’s already shown more competence at the NFL level than a guy like that.
Well…I’m just making the observation that if the team had to sub him out regularly through his first season due to his conditioning (weighing in at almost 400 lbs in camp this year), and given that he’s coming back after only playing 1 game last year ( and his replacement didn’t play all that badly) its a bit of a stretch to consider him a solid NFL tackle as yet….wouldn’t you agree that coming to camp totally out of shape (he’d have to be Hercules to be able to play at that weight through 16 games), is a pretty strong indication as to his dedication to the game and to his own stature in the game….maybe he proves us wrong this year, but so far, after 2 seasons in the NFL, he isn’t a lock……
I never said he was a lock. I said the first poster was a silly level of pessimistic. He played almost 700 snaps as a rookie. It’s not like he was only a part time player. Obviously it’s easy to see a path to him not working out now, but the pessimism is over the top now.
He was a gr8 player and probably will b again but not consistent. it’s very hard to root for a guy who won’t put down his sandwich….at least till he finishes it
It’s not about “putting down his sandwich”. His “ideal” weight of 363 pounds is a good 80 or so more than his frame should be carrying. In order to maintain his playing weight, he’s got to maintain eating habits that aren’t optimal for the human body. His “extra” 40 pounds is actually a fairly modest percentage of his target weight, in line with a 160 man weighing in at 178. No one would care about that, and it would be considered practically svelte by (actual) American standards. But in his case, that extra 40 pounds just compounds the already unhealthy and unnatural state his profession forces him into.
That’s not how frames and weights work. You’ll often hear from NFL linemen that most of them are divided between guys whose bodies would be substantially heavier or substantially lighter if they weren’t working hard to be lineman sized.
Also, how do you put down a sandwich after finishing it?
Dunno; it wasn’t my sandwich. But on the other subject, why is it that we hear so frequently about big guys ruining their knees? It’s seems to me a simple matter of mechanics that bone strength is going to be proportional to the cross-section (which is a 2-dimensional area, R-squared, etc.), while weight is proportional to 3 dimensional volume (R-cubed). So even if a guy has a “big frame”, the mechanical structure of bone isn’t going to scale well enough to sustain that weight. Even with Aaron Judge, who is an exquisitely proportioned giant, there seems to be a lot of concern over whether his knees are going to hold up over his career. And he is 80 lbs lighter than Becton, at the same height.
Now, as to his general systems (circulatory, etc.)– do the critical organs have the ability to scale sufficiently to support that much meat? I have no idea, but one would think there is a limit, since their size is determined to a great extent by genetic coding.
If they felt he wasn’t going to answer the bell they would have signed Reiff already