Jets Release DL Eric Hicks & OT Adrian Jones
Mike Tannenbaum announced Tuesday the release of two veteran players from the Jets, Defensive Lineman Eric Hicks along with Offensive Tackle Adrian Jones. Hicks was a free agent brought in this past May, while Jones was a 2004 4th Round Draft Pick by the Jets under the Bradway era.
These guys weren’t contributing to the team of late. Hicks had been inactive for three of the last five games, but was selected as the Practice Player of the Week after the win over the Dolphins December 2nd, and Jones was up and active for the first seven games of the season, but has been inactive over the past seven weeks.
Jettisoning Hicks is less notable to me, but the move to release Adrian Jones is another strike against Terry Bradway and his lasting legacy with this team. This whole thing made me remember back to April of 2005 when then GM of the Jets Terry Bradway told the media with a straight face .
“Trust me on this one. He can play Right Tackle.”
So how did we get to here? Terry projected Jones as a Right Tackle, but failed to note that you need to be able to effectively run block as a Right Tackle for a right handed QB, something that for which Jones isn’t known or respected. The reason being that the Left Tackle should be responsible for taking on the blindside rusher most of the time. The day that Ferguson was drafted was the watershed for Jones, there was no starting spot for him left on this line at Tackle and it’s been a slow descent from there.
How about Guard? There wasn’t a starting spot at Guard for him either, since he didn’t have the requisite run blocking skills. This left the Jets with one place for him, backup Left Tackle and they’ve finally gotten sick of reserving a roster spot for this one-note instrument.
The hope is that this means that they are also pleased with the progress of depth players like Will Montgomery or maybe even Jacob Bender. I don’t know if it means we’ll see either starting this weekend (Adrien Clarke should be hung by his jockstrap from the goalpost one way or another) based on last week’s performance. Hopefully the next roster moves that will be announced in the next day or two should shed some light into this situation further.
There has been a lot of talk in the papers about whether KC can really lead this team or if the Jets need to resume the great QB search. I don’t think KC has been given a fair chance to succeed. On the contrary, I think he has been set up to fail. He has faced, for the most part, very highly ranked defenses and is “protected” by the weakest o-line the Jets have put on the playing field in a decade.
KC has a good arm, decent mobility and for the most part, has made good decisions. His record and completion percentage are atrocious, but all mitigating factors should be taken into consideration.
The release of Clarke punctuates this point. The Jets are incapable of running the ball, which adds a lot of pressure to the QB position. Moreover, the o-line doesn’t give enough protection to allow for slower developing plays. I blame the o-line, the coaching, but not KC.