Florham Park, NJ - As the Jets play out the final four games of the season, they will have to do it with center Nick Mangold. After missing four games with an ankle injury, Mangold thought he was healed enough to play against the Colts but after re-injuring the ankle in the game the veteran center is back in a walking boot.
Todd Bowles had just finished telling reporters that Mangold wouldn't play this week against the 49ers but they had yet to make a decision on whether or not to shut him down when not five minutes later the news broke that Mangold would be placed on IR.
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Mangold is traveling to see a specialist to determine if he needs surgery on the ankle and with the Jets so far out of contention the real story here is not about missing these next four games, but a question of have we seen the last of Mangold in a Jets uniform. Mangold has one-year left on his contract with a $9,075,000 cap hit with no dead money tied up. So they Jets could keep Mangold and pay him that $9 million or they could release him and free that $9 million in cap space to address other areas on the team, which we all know desperately need to be addressed.
Mangold has been a steady and dependable force anchoring the Jets offensive line for his entire 11-year career but at 32-years-old the wear and tear on his body might be starting to get the best of him and with a $9 million price tag it might be in the Jets best interest to move on and look elsewhere. Wesley Johnson will never be what Mangold was but he's played well enough in Mangold's absence to make the Jets think long and hard about using that cap space to upgrade other positions.
Of course Mangold is hardly the only veteran the Jets will be faced with making a decision like this, Darrelle Revis is likely gone, it's really hard to envision both Brandon Marshal and Eric Decker returning, David Harris has $6.5 million cap hit next year that, like Mangold, involves no dead money and the Jets can get all that cap space back and the Jets will almost certainly have to look for a way to move Sheldon Richardson.
The 2017 season has been a cataclysmic disaster for the Jets and we can expect to see a sizable portion of this year's roster to change, as tends to happen in seasons like this, and many of the players who will leave will have been fan favorites and big-time contributers for the Jets over the years. This team may be unrecognizable at the start of next year, but after the way this season turned out maybe that's for the best.
Todd Bowles had just finished telling reporters that Mangold wouldn't play this week against the 49ers but they had yet to make a decision on whether or not to shut him down when not five minutes later the news broke that Mangold would be placed on IR.
[TWEET]806930563168870400[/TWEET]
Mangold is traveling to see a specialist to determine if he needs surgery on the ankle and with the Jets so far out of contention the real story here is not about missing these next four games, but a question of have we seen the last of Mangold in a Jets uniform. Mangold has one-year left on his contract with a $9,075,000 cap hit with no dead money tied up. So they Jets could keep Mangold and pay him that $9 million or they could release him and free that $9 million in cap space to address other areas on the team, which we all know desperately need to be addressed.
Mangold has been a steady and dependable force anchoring the Jets offensive line for his entire 11-year career but at 32-years-old the wear and tear on his body might be starting to get the best of him and with a $9 million price tag it might be in the Jets best interest to move on and look elsewhere. Wesley Johnson will never be what Mangold was but he's played well enough in Mangold's absence to make the Jets think long and hard about using that cap space to upgrade other positions.
Of course Mangold is hardly the only veteran the Jets will be faced with making a decision like this, Darrelle Revis is likely gone, it's really hard to envision both Brandon Marshal and Eric Decker returning, David Harris has $6.5 million cap hit next year that, like Mangold, involves no dead money and the Jets can get all that cap space back and the Jets will almost certainly have to look for a way to move Sheldon Richardson.
The 2017 season has been a cataclysmic disaster for the Jets and we can expect to see a sizable portion of this year's roster to change, as tends to happen in seasons like this, and many of the players who will leave will have been fan favorites and big-time contributers for the Jets over the years. This team may be unrecognizable at the start of next year, but after the way this season turned out maybe that's for the best.
