INDIANAPOLIS — The Jets will need to fill another hole on their offensive line.
Gang Green has released veteran left guard Laken Tomlinson on Monday after two seasons with the club, a source confirmed to the Daily News.
The move will save the Jets around $8 million this year on the cap. Gang Green will now have $24.7 million to spend this offseason.
In 2022, the Jets signed Tomlinson to a three-year, $40 million contract with the hopes of him being the anchor on their offensive line after he spent five seasons with the 49ers. Although Tomlinson was the only Jets offensive lineman to start all 34 games the last two seasons, he struggled with consistency.
In 2022, Tomlinson only let up one sack and committed one penalty in 1110 snaps. However, his play slipped significantly last season. In 2023, Tomlinson committed three penalties and allowed seven sacks and 35 quarterback hits in 1099 snaps.
Now, with the release of Tomlinson, the Jets will need to find three starters on their offensive line. Both tackles Duane Brown and Mekhi Becton will be free agents once the new league year begins on March 14. Brown is likely to retire and Becton may not return to the Jets after he allowed 12 sacks and committed 18 penalties last year.
The offensive line has been a source of problems for the Jets since Robert Saleh arrived in 2021. In 2022, 11 different offensive linemen started games for the Jets. The offensive line situation was even worse in 2023 when the Jets used 14 different offensive line combinations in 17 games.
Following the release of Tomlinson, only two starters that remain on the Jets offensive line are second-year center Joe Tippmann and guard Alijah Vera-Tucker, who is coming off a season-ending Achilles injury.
The Jets have tried to address their offensive line, but the same issues have remained. With Aaron Rodgers, 40, returning from an Achilles injury that kept him out all but four snaps in 2023, Jets general manager Joe Douglas knows he has to figure out a way to improve the offensive line once and for all.
I think it’s just going back into revisiting all the discussions, all the reports, what worked, what didn’t work,” Douglas said last month about addressing the Jets offensive line. “I feel like our decision-making process as a whole, I don’t think there needs to be any foundational changes in terms of that because I feel like some of the same processes that have led to some of our mistakes have also led to some pretty big hits.
“It’s going back and tweaking the process. The meeting process or the decision process and determining exactly where we went wrong and determine what were the reasons that we made successful decisions.”
