Jets making low key changes that can pay off big in terms of keeping their players healthy

The New York Jets used 13 different combinations along their offensive line last year. There are 17 games in a season. Which means in all by four games they had a different combination of five guys protecting either a 40-year-old, a rookie who couldn’t see the field, a career backup that likely wasn’t good enough to be a backup or a guy who wasn’t even on an NFL roster to start the year.

For a position that is built not only on strength and brains, but cohesion amongst the five to work as one entity, that was a recipe for the disaster the 2023 Jets were.

Now the Jets have “solved” the problem bringing in two 33-year-old offensive tackles, one of whom has not played a full season in almost a decade. Something has to change. Well finally, something did.

The Jets have made some changes to their sports performance and sports science staff according to sources. The teams’ athletic care and performance department, created three years ago to combat a high injury rate, has undergone a shake-up.

The Jets are reportedly parting ways with Brad DeWeese, who was named the director of high performance in March 2021. Along with DeWeese are Robert Sausaman, the assistant director of high performance and Matt Sams, the director of sports science who are his top lieutenants.

The Jets started their sports science department after the 2020 season and with the hiring of Robert Saleh. The 2020 season was filled with injuries and the Jets studied the issue and decided to make a bold move by hiring DeWeese and creating a performance department. The objective was to improve player safety by consolidating areas such as strength and conditioning, nutrition, rehab and mental performance.

The Jets are one of the most injury-plagued franchises over the past few seasons which has many people questioning how the team is handling their strength and conditioning. Joe Douglas, in speaking on the performance and science staff said earlier this season "obviously, we've invested a lot of resources in that position. I know I've sat here and had conversations with you in the past about how much availability is of importance to this group, and for the last two years we've been banged up."

Many, me included, would not only question the work done by the training staff, the performance department, and the coaches, but the playing surface the Jets use at MetLife stadium. A lot has been said about the MetLife field turf and none of it has been good.

Nothing can derail a season more quickly or more devastatingly than injuries, especially when a team has depth issues all over the roster. The Jets are desperate for anything to prevent another season of watching multi-million-dollar players watching in street clothes as their seventh-round replacements try to play to a level they will likely never reach.

These shake-ups are a necessary step in the battle against injuries, but they will not solve the problem. Perhaps the Jets need to focus more on the field they are forcing the team to play on and less on how many strawberries can be in Tyron Smith’s protein shake if they are really concerned about injuries.