If you were a cynic, you could view Alijah Vera-Tucker’s assessment of this Jets offensive line — “the best room I’ve been a part in since being in the league” — as damning with faint praise.
Over Vera-Tucker’s three seasons in the NFL, the Jets have not exactly been world-beaters up front.
In 2023, injuries decimated a line that never appeared all that great to begin with.
It is also easy to be optimistic with nearly two weeks before a meaningful snap takes place against the 49ers on “Monday Night Football.”
At the same time, though, the five-man group of Tyron Smith, John Simpson, Joe Tippmann, Vera-Tucker and Morgan Moses — three of them being new additions — does look much improved on paper.
And, to hear Vera-Tucker tell it, that has not just been on the field.
“Just a different vibe [than in the past],” he told The Post after Tuesday’s practice. “Everybody likes each other, messes with each other. Everybody knows that we want to come in every day, put in the work. We don’t really have anybody who comes in to kind of [screw] around. So that’s one thing.
“The other thing is, we just got a lot of talent in that room this year.
With the 1s, 2s, we even had guys come in with the 3s who we signed who showed out this camp.
So that’s a lot of guys in the room who just want to work and who are good at it, too.”
Let’s stipulate that, however the second-stringers looked during camp, any kind of best-case scenario for the Jets involves their top unit staying as healthy as can be for the next 18 weeks and then some.
If there was a positive to come out of the shuffling act they had to pull last season, though, it’s that they now feel more equipped for whatever departure from the ideal gets inevitably tossed in their face this time around.
“I think with football, any sport really, there’s gonna be injuries. Knock on wood, we don’t have too many this year,” Vera-Tucker said. “Especially in the O-line room after past years. I think the past years have really developed a couple guys in the room. If, unfortunately, someone does go down, the guys have a lot of reps.”
The new faces — Smith, Simpson, Moses — all walk into the room with pedigree as well.
“I’ll single out John Simpson, he doesn’t get talked about in this whole thing,” coach Robert Saleh said. “I think he’s been phenomenal through camp. He’s going against Quinnen [Williams] every day. Thought he had a really cool battle with Dexter Lawrence during Giants week. Had a really cool battle with the D-tackles at Carolina, which are some of the best in football. And then same thing at Washington.”
As for the tackles?
“I think with Tyron, it’s kind of self-explanatory,” Vera-Tucker said. “He’s been doing it for a very long time. When you look at his film, it’s just the same thing and over and over, so he’s a real technician. Same with Morgan Moses.
“So you’re bringing two veteran guys in like that, draft Olu [Fashanu], other young tackles, they can learn from that. And we’ve seen that as well so far throughout this camp, so that’s been really cool.”
It’s easy to have a good vibe before Labor Day. And if you’re looking for a reason to be cynical, the snapping issues that plagued Tippmann for chunks of camp are hanging around as a question mark until proven otherwise.
But the Jets see tangible improvement here. And it is hard to disagree.
