The New York Jets missed out on the top-tier offensive linemen on day one of free agency. That’s led them to a familiar face, Alex Lewis.
According to Connor Hughes of The Athletic, the New York Jets are making progress on bringing back guard Alex Lewis.
This would be a huge mistake for the Jets. Lewis was one of the worst guards in the NFL in 2019. He allowed two sacks and had six penalties in 12 starts in 2019. Lewis also had some of the worst pressure rates among guards in the NFL.
Not to mention that Lewis was one of the worst run blockers in the NFL at his position. He was a substantial improvement over Kelechi Osemele in 2019, but compared to the rest of the NFL, he was awful.
Adding him and asking him to start at guard would be a failure. Compound that with the Jets adding George Fant on Monday and the Jets are setting themselves up to have a worse offensive line than they had in 2019.
The good news is that the Jets still have time to replace Lewis. If the deal is cheap there won’t be anything stopping them from adding another guard and pushing Lewis to the bench. Whether that comes from free agency or the draft wouldn’t matter.
If the Jets add both Lewis and Greg Van Roten, for instance, that would be an improvement. Van Roten and Brian Winters would be an upgrade over the pair they had in 2019 and a solid guard combo.
Alex Lewis coming off the bench would be decent. He’s a solid backup who can make a spot start here and there.
The Jets retaining Lewis wouldn’t be the end of the world, so long as they’re signing him as a bench piece. Asking him to start is just asking for failure.