The New York Jets added a superstar talent on defense a year ago, but he never got to play a snap.
Carl Lawson was stolen away from the Cincinnati Bengals and was supposed to quell the green and white’s pass-rushing woes, but it never came to fruition.
Now coming off of a very serious ruptured Achilles injury, it is impossible to know what he will be able to bring the team next season.
That means the Jets must once again be proactive on the open market to find another dynamic pass rusher. Fortunately, one analyst has proposed the perfect pickup for Gang Green this offseason.
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A Very Interesting Fit on the Defense
On I’m Just Saying with Brian Mazique, the topic of perfect free agency fits was brought up on the show, and one analyst had quite the name for Jets fans to chew on:
“Haason Reddick has been balling with the Panthers. I mean he has been a crazy player for Carolina. How would you like it if you had Carl Lawson on one side and Reddick on the other? I don’t really see them getting an EDGE in the first round,” NFL analyst Ryan Sanudo. “To have those two specimens on defense would be something. With all the money the Jets have in free agency they could say screw you Carolina, we’re getting Reddick.”
The former Temple product is set to be an unrestricted free agent this march and will be looking for his big payday. He decided to take a one-year flier on himself in 2021 and it paid off in a major way.
Spotrac market value projects that he’ll land a deal that pays out over $15.3 million per season on a multi-year deal. That would rank 12th in the NFL among outside linebackers.
The 27-year-old originally entered the league as the No. 13 overall pick in the first round of the 2017 NFL draft.
Candidly it took the pass rusher a while to find his footing in the NFL, but once he figured it out, Reddick exploded.
Haason Reddick is a beast man…. for real for real
📺: FOX
In his first three seasons combined he only registered 7.5 total sacks. Then over the last two years, he has tallied 23.5 for the Carolina Panthers and Arizona Cardinals respectively.
While the sack numbers are certainly impressive, all of the other statistics stand out on their own:
- 50 quarterback hits
- 45 tackles for loss
- 11 forced fumbles
The cherry on top of this pie is his attendance trophy, Reddick has played in 80 of 81 career NFL games during his five seasons.
Keep Adding to the Firepit
For the Jets, they have to hope for the best and expect the worst as it pertains to the Lawson injury and his return.
You can hope that he makes a full recovery and can still be that potential double-digit sack guy, but you can’t rely on it.
As a matter of fact, we’ll take it a step further by saying the Jets should assume he won’t be back. With that in mind, they should keep adding logs to the fire and acquire more pass rushers.
If Lawson comes back in full bloom then that’s gravy, if he doesn’t that is okay because you already prepared for that.
This Robert Saleh, Jeff Ulbrich scheme is solely dependent on its ability to rush the passer with its front four. That puts an extra emphasis on adding a variety of bodies up front on the defensive line.
The more talented bodies they can add, the greater the chance they have of getting home.
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