While special teams is often where rookies get their start, it has always given Andrew Beck, who is preparing for his eighth season in the NFL, a lot of excitement.
"It gives you the opportunity to do everything, just go out there and be a football player," Beck told newyorkjets.com.
Beck will be playing in his second season with the Green & White after suiting up in every game in 2025. He appeared in a career-high 319 snaps on special teams and recorded 4 tackles. He re-signed in March.
"As an offensive guy, there's seldom, hopefully never times that I'm gonna be tackling, you know, if it is, something bad happened on the offensive side of the ball," Beck said. "But when we get on special teams, it's awesome because you get to go be a tackler sometimes and next time you're blocking. It truly lets you experience the entire skill set needed for football and I think that's an exciting part."
Special teams is a bright spot for the Jets with Chris Banjo as the unit's coordinator. The Green & White finished the 2025 season with top 10 rankings in 10 categories, including leading the league in special teams touchdowns (4), kickoff return average (29.9), field-goal percentage (96.6%) and extra-point percentage (100%).
This offseason, Beck's priority was to improve his tackling. Throughout OTAs, the coaching staff implemented more offense-specific tackling work to help all players contributing on special teams.
"Obviously being an offensive guy, we don't get a ton of tackling work and on special teams, I mean, half the time you're out there that's the battle right?" Beck said. "Like when we're covering punts and kickoffs, obviously it's more of a defensive mindset, so it's something I'm familiar with just playing ball growing up but it's definitely a thing I looked to work on more specifically this offseason and I think I've been able to."
As a fullback, Beck had 6 catches for 45 yards and 2 touchdowns last season. During practice he works with the tight ends, which, in Frank Reich's offensive system, are expected to have large roles.
"I think this offense is setting the guys in that room up for success in both the run game and the pass game," Beck said. "I think they're going to be able to contribute a lot and I think it's something that excites the entire room."
As the Jets install this new system, Beck is excited about how the offense is coming together because of how Reich "puts guys in the right spot."
"He does such a good job of not necessarily a giant diverse playbook of a million things that we have to master, but putting guys in different spots and letting them do what they do best," Beck said. "So he's not going ask me to run 80 yards downfield and he's not going to ask Garrett Wilson to run ISO [isolate] on the linebacker."
Utilizing a fullback gives the Jets more versatility, but regardless of what Beck's offensive role looks like, he will remain a contributor for the Jets on special teams.
