The New York Jets selected former Missouri offensive tackle Armand Membou with the No. 7 overall pick in the first round.
That created some eyebrow-raising headlines around the NFL.
“Love what the Jets and Raiders did, adding to already young/ascending OL groups, both are sneaky candidates to have top-5 units in 2025,” CBS Sports NFL draft analyst Mike Renner said on social media.
both are sneaky candidates to have top-5 units in 2025
NFL Insider Connor Hughes of SNY took it a step further, saying the Jets’ offensive line, “Can seriously be [the] best in NFL” after the selection of Membou.
Jets Have One of Their Best O-Lines in 15 Years
The green and white have invested more into their O-Line than any other team in the NFL since 2020.
Three of their five starters were taken with top-14 picks in the NFL draft: Alijah Vera-Tucker, Olu Fashanu, and now Membou.
ESPN NFL draft analyst Matt Miller told ESPN’s Rich Cimini on the “Flight Deck” podcast that this unit has a chance to be special.
“I love the idea of pairing him [Membou] with Olu Fashanu, who I loved in last year’s draft. Getting those guys back in their natural positions and really saying, hey, we’re gonna establish the run, we are gonna have two young offensive tackles, something this team has probably never had. Going back to D’Brickashaw Ferguson, you haven’t had offensive tackles with this high of a ceiling,” Miller told Cimini.
Hughes spoke with one NFL team that believes Membou’s “physical gifts give him Pro Bowl potential.”
“Told he’s a ridiculous athlete. Don’t make too many guys his size who are that gifted physically. What two teams loved about him, though, was his mentality between the lines. ‘Nasty’ and ‘dirt bag’ were how he was described — both compliments, not insults. He plays possessed between the lines, which is exactly what you want when trying to set a tone with your OL,” Hughes added.
Told he’s a ridiculous athlete. Don’t make too many guys his size who are that gifted physically. What two teams loved about him, though, was his mentality between the lines. “Nasty” and “dirt bag” were how he was
Not everyone was high on Membou pre-draft.
Cimini spoke with an NFC scout who told him that Membou was the fifth-best offensive tackle in April’s draft.
The Jets Had the Right Temperature of the 2025 NFL Draft
First-year Jets general manager Darren Mougey deserves credit for having the right temperature of the NFL draft. The Jets entered the draft with many needs, in no particular order: defensive tackle, tight end, right tackle, wide receiver, safety, etc.
The debate was which position the Jets should attack first in the draft. One of the debates was offensive tackle versus tight end.
Mougey went with an offensive lineman at pick No. 7. Thank goodness he did. In the first 41 selections of the draft, nine offensive linemen went off the board. If the Jets had gone with Tyler Warren out of Penn State, a very popular mock pick, Mougey would have had very limited OL options at pick No. 42 in the second round.
Armand Membou-Jets Pairing Sparked Eyebrow Raising Headlines