One in a series of articles that will also appear in the New York Jets 2026 Yearbook, which will be published this summer.
Few groups on the football field are as unsung as offensive linemen. Do your job and that's what you're supposed to do. Underachieve in the run game, fail to protect your quarterback, and the critics start pointing fingers.
It's been well-documented that the Jets had the NFL's only offensive line that started the same five players in every game last regular season. Their group of five in the trenches took 99.2% of the line plays, the highest figure for a Jets OL dating at least to 2004, when play counts first became available.
"I feel good about that offensive line," GM Darren Mougey said at the start of the offseason. "I think that's a strength of ours, it's a young group. I think, with continuity in the group, they'll only continue to get better."
As a group, they need to get better protecting new QB Geno Smith after allowing 60 sacks last season, among the highest total in the league. On the flip side, the O-line also was efficient enough to help RB Breece Hall eclipse 1,000 rushing yards for the first time in his NFL career.
The young guys in the group include the team's pair of bookend tackles who could be around for a long time, each a first-round draft pick in consecutive years — LT Olu Fashanu, 23, and RT Armand Membou, 22. RG Joe Tippmann, 25, starting his fourth year in the league, has played in all but one game (at center until last season) during his time with the Jets. C Josh Myers, at 27 years old and entering his sixth season in the league, is the "grizzled veteran" of the group.
Unlike last season, when John Simpson was the fifth member of the group, there will be a new large human being at LG, most likely Dylan Parham, 26, signed as a free agent after four seasons with the Raiders.
In addition to Simpson's free-agency departure for Baltimore, 2021 first-round pick Alijah Vera-Tucker, who missed all of last season because of an injury, moved on to New England in free agency.
To add some depth at a critical position, Mougey during April's draft traded sixth- and seventh-round picks for Seattle's sixth-round selection and added massive Miami OL Anez Cooper, 22, (6-5, 334) to the room.
The Jets' other backups include the reliable Max Mitchell, who is entering his fifth season; Chukwuma Okorafor, a nine-year veteran in his second season with the Jets; and Xavier Newman-Johnson, who can play either guard or center.
