Laken was lacking in 2023
Arguably the New York Jets’ biggest splash in the 2022 free agency period was the signing of offensive guard Laken Tomlinson to a 3 year, 40-million-dollar contract. The Jets had hoped that Tomlinson would help stabilize the offensive line. Instead, the New York Jets offensive line has been quite bad for basically the entirety of Tomlinson’s tenure. While these struggles were not all Tomlinson’s fault, the Jets apparently thought they were enough of his fault to release him on Monday night to save about 8 million dollars in cap space.
The #Jets are releasing guard Laken Tomlinson, per source.
Move saves around $8.1M on the cap.
Incredibly durable player has started 114 straight games.
— Jeremy Fowler (@JFowlerESPN) February 27, 2024
In evaluating this move, we have to consider how Laken played in 2023, the most recent season. To try to ascertain that, I checked out his PFF grades for this season, which are as follows:
- Overall grade: 55.0 (ranked 81st among qualifying guards)
- Pass blocking grade: 60.6 (ranked 53rd among qualifying guards)
- Run blocking grade: 49.6 (ranked 105th among qualifying guards)
Overall, that paints a picture of a pretty “meh” guard at best. Accordingly, the cap savings are likely worth more than the player. In further support, OverTheCap.com has Tomlinson’s estimated value at 4 million dollars, which is only half of what he was slated to receive.