Mekhi Becton out for season with serious knee injury
Robert Saleh refrained from confirming the worst. Mekhi Becton will seek a second opinion before the Jets, at least officially, concede that he won’t step on the field again until 2023.
But this doesn’t look good. Not at all.
“It’s probably the inevitable,” Saleh said. “But like I said earlier, just sick for Mekhi.”
Saleh was speaking about another knee injury ending Becton’s season before it begins, and the sea of dominos that will fall with that reality. That encompasses the Jets’ right tackle position — which turns into a massive question mark. The team will depend on some combination of Chuma Edoga, Max Mitchell, Conor McDermott and potential signee Duane Brown to provide some kind of answer. It also encompasses the remainder of Becton’s career, which is now open to the sort of ending Saleh did not want to speak about on Tuesday.
“At the end of the day, it sucks,” the Jets coach said, “for lack of a better word. But no one cares. You gotta get up, get ready, next man up, all those dumb clichés in these moments.”
The team’s initial optimism that the injury would be a non-event was based on tests to look for ACL and MCL issues — tests which showed Becton’s knee to be stable, and which turned out to be accurate. The diagnosis is an avulsion fracture of the right knee cap, which is to say a small chip in his kneecap.
This was meant to be the year in which Becton, a first-round pick in 2020, showed what he could do after missing all but one game in 2021. Instead, it is another setback, the kind that makes an eventual ascension all the more unlikely. If his eventual return is not until next season’s training camp, Becton will step onto the practice field in July 2023 having played one NFL game since December 2020.
“Everything happens for a reason,” Becton wrote in an Instagram post. “I know God and my Grandma got me up there I JUST KNOW IT!”
“We love Mekhi,” Saleh said. “We appreciate everything he’s done, and his ride is not over. His story’s not over, and he’s got full support of this organization.”
For now though, the immediate focus turns to the right tackle spot, where there is no clear answer. Edoga took most of the reps with the first team during Tuesday’s practice, though Mitchell rotated in. (McDermott is currently dealing with a knee issue of his own). It was not the best day for the offensive line, and neither was Monday — when the group struggled both before and after Becton left practice.
Zach Wilson was sacked 44 times in 13 games last season and led the league in yardage lost due to sacks. Things are not looking so optimistic on that front right now, though signing Brown — who visited during the team’s Green and White scrimmage last weekend — would be as reasonable a Band-Aid as the Jets could hope for right now.
Saleh was mum on that possibility Tuesday, saying only that he had no update but “the feelings are mutual” between Brown and the Jets.
“Chuma, McDermott, Max, who we drafted in the fourth round, they gotta get going,” Saleh said. “We gotta get them ready. [Offensive line coach] John Benton’s gotta get them ready.”
As to their readiness right now, with the preseason opener in Philadelphia just a few days away?
“We’re all a long way,” Saleh said. “I’m a long way to go as a coach, the play-callers are a long way to go as play-callers, every player has a long way to go to get themselves ready to play for Week 1 against Baltimore, who’s got a championship roster.
“We’ve got three preseason games. We’ve got time. That’s a good thing.”